Two Warriors
by eraider60
Summary: (AU story for T2; Gen) During the war against SkyNet, the resistance is able to send two of its own back through time to protect John Connor when he's still a kid. One is a reprogrammed Terminator, and the other is a human resistance soldier, who happens to be a friend of Kyle Reese. Will they reach John before the T-1000 unit does?
1. Prologue

_Two Warriors_

 **A/N: Hope you like my own AU twist on T2. The story will run closely similar to the movie for the most part, but I always wondered what the interactions would have been if a human resistance fighter, that happened to be a close friend of Kyle Reese, went back with the reprogrammed Terminator. Oh yeah, disclaimer: I don't own the Terminator franchise except my OC and changes in T2's story and interactions, and speaking of OC, here's his introductory bio.**

 **OC Introduction: Eric Clark**

 **Age: 24**

 **Hair: Short**

 **Hair color: Dark brown**

 **Eye Color: Brown**

 **Bio: Kyle Reese's friend, and one of John Connor's best soldiers in the human resistance. He goes back in time with a reprogrammed Terminator to help protect John Connor when he's still a kid. (A/N: His purpose for going back will be in the story)**

Prologue

Los Angeles Ruins - 2029 A.D.

 _Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war, "Judgement Day." They lived only to face a new nightmare: The war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, SkyNet, sent two terminators back through time. Their mission: To destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor. The first terminator was sent back to 1984, to eliminate John's mother, Sarah, before he was born… it failed. The second was sent back to strike at John himself when he was still a kid. This time, the resistance was able to send not one, but two warriors to protect John. It was just a question of which side would reach him first._

Gunfire, explosions, and grinding metal are heard from a distance as John Connor worked on the head of a captured 800 series Terminator inside his personal quarters within the bunker. He was reprogramming it so it could do John Connor's bidding, not SkyNet's. Eric Clark, one of John's best soldiers, is in a corner watching Connor work and standing ready in case Connor's reprogramming attempt backfired. Eric had an utmost respect for John Connor and considered him a friend, considering he had fought alongside him and Kyle Reese, another friend of Eric's, for a good part of the war since they first met.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Eric spoke when Connor had finished reprogramming the CPU chip, and was about to put it back into the Terminator's skull. Connor replied, "What's on your mind, Clark?" Eric responded, "Has it ever occurred to you that one of these times, the reprogramming could backfire, no matter how careful you were?" Eric was aware of Connor's programming capabilities, and he had been there when Connor reprogrammed other cyborgs, but he always believed they could relapse at any moment.

Connor replied again, "Yes, I have, but there are some risks I must take." He then proceeded to plug the CPU into the cyborg's head, and Eric watched as its eyes became alive. John then stood in front of it and asked it what its mission parameters are. It replied, "To protect John Connor and to help ensure the survival of the human race." Despite the amount of times he had heard a terminator say that, Eric still remained wary of their original parameters. Connor turned back to Eric, "Follow me, there's something I need to show you."

Eric and the Terminator followed John through his bunker until they came to a room entrance that Eric never noticed before. Then again, Eric had rarely been in John's bunker. Next to the door had what looked like a bio-metric retinal scanner, and John put his face to it and the door opened. They went in and Eric saw what looked like a round chamber that had high tech equipment. It wasn't huge, but large enough to look important. Eric suddenly got this feeling of uneasiness as he looked around the room and noticed Connor at a computer preparing the equipment for something.

"What is this place?" Eric asked as he watched Connor typing up something on the keyboard.

"This, Clark, is a chamber for time displacement equipment," Connor replied.

"Time Displacement Equipment… As in a time machine?" Eric asked and Connor nodded yes. Eric felt his breath leave him and he crouched, holding his head with his hands as he tried to get a grip on what Connor had just told him. He managed to get his bearings again, stood back up, looked at Connor and asked, "Why don't we use this to stop Judgement Day from happening?"

"It's not that simple, Eric. Others have tried before, but it still happened. This war is still happening, and I'm still the resistance leader."

Eric responds, "Others have traveled through time?"

"Yes. Do you remember Kyle… at that facility?"

He then flashed back to when he, Connor, Kyle, and a few others, stormed a key SkyNet facility. They believed it was the source of SkyNet's defense grid, and if they destroyed, it would be victory for the resistance. Everything went to plan, and from Eric's point of view, they managed to destroy it and escape, but Kyle never came out of the place, because only he and Connor went deeper into the facility while he had been ordered to stand guard at the outer perimeter. He thought his Kyle was dead, and had mourned his friend. As for SkyNet, somehow, it wasn't defeated. It was still a threat to the resistance, and the war continued on.

A look of shock forms on Eric's face as it all started making sense to him. Kyle didn't die at that facility, he went back in time. "John… Why didn't you tell me? What happened in there?"

"Because it wasn't the time for you to know the truth. Kyle and I discovered that SkyNet had a TDE chamber, and had sent a Terminator back in time, a model of Terminator just like that one," Connor pointed at the reprogrammed T-800, which had been quiet since they entered Connor's personal TDE chamber. "It was sent back to kill my mother, Sarah Connor, in 1984. Kyle volunteered to be the one to go back, and as much as he wanted to say goodbye to you, we couldn't delay." Eric was completely shocked by what he was just told, and had so many questions, but he settled with what he wanted to know. "Let me guess, Kyle succeeded, but lost his life in the process." Connor nodded, and Eric's mourning for Kyle had renewed for a moment until Connor told him that he himself is Kyle Reese's son. Kyle and Sarah had conceived John together.

This was a lot to take in, but Eric kept his composure. "How did you get this chamber?" Connor replied, "Let's just say I had help." Eric knew Connor wasn't telling him the whole story, but he didn't push it.

"So what did you bring me here for, if I may ask?"

"I'll explain in a moment. Right now, I'm about to send this reprogrammed Terminator back to 1995, to protect my younger self. I received info that SkyNet has managed to build another TDE, and it sent back an advanced prototype, a T-1000, to that year to kill me. It's a liquid metal shape-shifting Terminator capable of imitating anyone it touches."

Eric could only respond with, "Oh boy… SkyNet really wants to ensure its own ultimate victory over the human race." Connor nodded, "And now for the reason I brought you here…" Eric perked up and listened, "What would you say if I gave you a chance to be honorably relieved of duty?" More shock came to Eric's face. Was he really being offered a chance to get away from the war via this time machine? "Under normal circumstances, I'd say thank you, but I can't go when the resistance needs every person possible."

"Eric…" Connor walked to Eric and put a hand on his shoulder. "You've gone above and beyond your duty to the resistance. I remember when I first met you. You were at the deepest depths of your despair and hopelessness, but I found you and did my best to pull you out. I trained you, taught you everything you needed to know. You've become one of the finest soldiers I've ever had the honor of knowing. I'm proud of you, and I'm also honored to call you my friend. I know Kyle would feel the same way. You've been through, and have done so much, and I just want to help you as my way of saying thank you for your loyalty and friendship."

Goosebumps flooded Eric's body. Here was Connor, a man he looked up to as his friend and commanding officer, willing to let go of one of his best soldiers, so he could have a chance to live life in peace, but it wouldn't be that simple for the young man. "But Connor, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."

"I believe you'll find a way." Connor said, and turned to walk back to the computer to finish the preparations for the TDE's use. "After I send this Terminator back, you will be free to go to any time period you want. Start over with a new life. It's up to you, although you still have the option to stay." Connor then ordered the machine to stand where the TDE field would be generated as Eric thought hard about the offer he was just given. It didn't take him long to give an answer. "I want to go with the machine and help protect your younger self."

Connor turned around to Eric with surprise, realizing that his comrade just asked to tag along with the Terminator for its mission. "Are you sure? Because the machine will be more than capable of handling its mission." The Terminator finally spoke after a lengthy period of silence, "I will protect John Connor at all costs." Eric looked at the machine for a second or two before looking at Connor. "John, even if I had the chance to start over in the past, I wouldn't have anybody to go to. Except you and Kyle, I have no more family. They died by the hands of SkyNet. Besides, it'd be a chance to meet your younger self, your mother, if given the opportunity, and I'll also make sure the terminator doesn't relapse. You can consider this my final mission."

Connor had found an even higher level of pride and respect for his comrade, for his willingness to fight the war for the future in the past. He could only nod with a soft smile. "I think you found your way, kid. In that case, for your final mission, your orders are to go with the Terminator to 1995, and aid it in the protection of my younger self." Eric replied with a salute, "Yes sir!"

Connor saluted back. "A word of warning, using the TDE will be a one way trip. You won't be able to come back to this point in time the same way. As for the T-1000, it will be a whole different game from previous models you've fought. Also, the John Connor you'll meet in 1995 won't be the same John Connor you're facing now. He'll be.. a little bit of a brat with a touch of profanity in his tongue, and if you get the chance to meet my mother, tell her, 'Come with me if you want to live.' She'll know what it means."

Eric nodded and replied, "I'm ready," and then reached out his hand to shake Connor's. Connor shook Eric's hand and then pulled him in for a hug. A little bit shocked at the sudden hug at first, Eric just hugged back, and said, "I'll fight to the bitter end. You have my word on that, John Connor. "

"And I'm counting on you to keep it, Eric Clark." After finishing with bidding farewell to each other, Eric walked over next to the reprogrammed cyborg and Connor entered the commands to start the TDE. Eric looked around as electricity currents formed around them, and took one final look at Connor watching them and then looked at the machine next to him before everything faded into a bright whiteness.

After Eric Clark and the machine vanished within the TDE field, Connor let out a deep sigh of breath and spoke aloud, "I'll sure miss that kid.". Then a mysterious voice spoke from behind him, "I'll miss him as well. It was a nice visual reminiscence of how young I used to be." Connor let out a soft chuckle, "The flow of time sure works in strange ways."

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed this. I know prologues can be a bit boring sometimes, but I wanted to introduce my OC first before I continued on. I thought about making my OC a sibling of Kyle Reese, but I felt it would have been a bit too clichéd. Tell me what you think about my AU story for T2. Reviews will be appreciated.**


	2. Chapter I: Like Being Reborn

**A/N: I think for the rest of the story, whenever it's in Eric Clark's POV, it'll be in first person. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Again, I don't own the copyrighted Terminator franchise, just this fan story.**

Chapter 1: Like being Reborn

 _ ***Eric's POV***_

My name is Eric Clark, and I just traveled back in time with a reprogrammed Terminator. The last thing I remember before the trip was John Connor offering me a chance to escape the war against SkyNet, and live a peaceful life. The thing is though, is that fighting against SkyNet is the only thing I know, considering I have nothing else to live for. That's why I volunteered to go with the machine, so things could still make sense for me to a degree. As the TDE field generated around us, my vision faded into a bright whiteness. I could feel some pain as we jumped, it was like being reborn to a degree. I wonder if my friend, Kyle, had the same experience...

Then my vision came back to, and the machine and I were crouching in this small crater that seemed to have been formed by the TDE sphere, and we were in some kind of alley. I slowly stood up, trying to quickly recuperate from the trip and get my bearings. I looked around the alley, and then peeked my head to look at the street, and I saw a clothing store, a gun store, and a motorcycle dealership within the vicinity. "How convenient," I thought to myself, especially considering that it seemed to be late at night, and the cyborg and I were completely naked, in both the literal and figurative sense.

I turned to the cyborg and asked if it could confirm the year we were in, and it spoke, "After analyzing our surroundings, I conclude that it is the year 1995." I nodded and said, "We're gonna need some clothes, some weapons, and motorcycles. They're all within the vicinity. I suggest we'd get them in that order." The cyborg replied with, "Affirmative."

I had the machine help me break into the clothing store, and we acquired clothes that we found fitting for ourselves. I found a white pocket T-shirt, a pair of cargo pants, a long jacket that would help me conceal whatever weapons I decided to carry, and some heavy duty looking boots. The Terminator found an outfit that made him look like a biker dude. It also grabbed a pair of sunglasses, and I decided to follow suit, considering our transportation will be bikes, and I wanted to keep the wind out of my eyes. Before we knew it, we had raided the gun store for weapons and ammo too. We both went with these lever action shotguns that had the stocks sawed off, and I grabbed a telescopic baton in case we had to deal with humans, for I wasn't about to kill a human... We then took pistols for good measure as well.

We finally snuck over to the dealership and broke in to find the keys. We picked our bikes, put our sunglasses on and we set off from the area. I kept as close as I could to the Terminator and hollered as we rode, "We need to find the Voight residence. I remember Connor telling me once that the Voights were his foster parents at one time!" It replied, "Affirmative."

 _ ***POV Shift to John Connor at the Voight residence; the following day***_

John Connor is working on his dirt bike in the Voights' garage, as his friend, Tim, is kicking back to the music blaring loudly on the stereo. John hears Janelle, his foster mother, order him to go clean his room, but he ignores her, revving his bike for added effect until she gives up and walks back into the house. Tim spoke, "Your foster parents are kind of dicks, huh?" John nodded as he finished tuning his bike, and they prepared to take off on said bike. Just as Tim climbed onto the bike, John's foster father, Todd, had walked out. "John, come on, get your ass inside and do what your mother tells you." John looked back at Todd and coldly replied, "She's _not_ my mother, Todd." He then accelerated down the street like there was no tomorrow. Little did he know that his whole life as he knew it was about to change.

 _ ***POV shift to Eric Clark***_

The Terminator and I had managed to find the Voight residence. We parked our bikes on the curb and I told the cyborg that I can do the talking. I knocked on the door and a woman came to answer it. If I remember right from what Connor of the future told me, she had to be Janelle. I asked, "Are you the foster mother of John Connor?" She replied, "Yes, can I help you?"

"May I talk with him please?" I asked, but Janelle replied, "He took off to who knows where on his bike about a half hour ago." I sighed on the inside, I should have known tracking John down wouldn't be _that_ easy. "Do you have any pictures of him?" I only asked that because I knew it would help the cyborg make an easier target acquisition in case it spotted him first. The lady seemed a bit confused about why I would ask for a picture, but went into the house to get one.

A man, who must have been Todd, was standing nearby listening to our conversation, and decided to ask, "You and your friend going to tell us what this is about?" I simply replied, "We're acquaintances of John's and we really need to talk to him about something." If they only knew… The lady came back and handed us the most recent picture of him. I looked at it and memorized it as quick as I could before handing it to the Terminator. I could tell it had memorized it in detail. It handed the picture back to the foster parents and said, "Thank you for your assistance." I added, "You have a nice day now." Janelle stopped me, "Hey, may I ask you something?"

The Terminator was already halfway to his bike, but I turned around to her and decided to listen to her last question. "Yeah, what's up?" Janelle then went on to say, "Can you please be honest with me with what this is all about?" I replied, "I can't. It's a secret among the three of us, but I can promise you personally that we're not looking to hurt him." Janelle seemed content with that answer and didn't push it any further. She went back into the house without saying another word. I went to my bike and looked to the Terminator. "Any ideas now on where he could be?" It replied "No, we will have to ride until we spot him." I sighed, considering that he could be anywhere at this point, and with the liquid metal on the loose, time was extremely critical. I thought to myself, " _Damn it, John, where are you?"_ We then set off on our search for young John Connor.

 **A/N: I hope you liked this chapter. I got rid of the bar scene completely, because I wanted the OC for the most part to have options in terms of his outfit and weapons.**


	3. Chapter II: Identity Positive

**Chapter Two: Identity Positive**

 _ ***John's POV***_

John and Tim had stopped at an ATM to get some cash, because John forgot to take some from the house when they left. John pulled out a small but somewhat bulky electronic device from his backpack, and attached to it was a wired blank card. John spoke softly to himself as he was at the ATM, "Please insert your stolen card now." He put the wired card into the slot and the device started to retrieve a PIN to display on the readout.

Tim spoke, "Will you hurry up? This is taking too long." John seemed to ignore him as spoke more to himself as the device was finishing retrieving a PIN, "Go baby, go baby, go baby... alright!" The PIN was on the readout clear as day now, and John proceeded to enter the PIN. Tim spoke again, "Where'd you learn this stuff from, anyway?"

"From my mom, my real mom, I mean," John replied, "Withdraw three, zero, zero bucks. Come on, baby, come on, come on... yes!" The device worked, the money had dispensed from the ATM. John grabbed it and they quickly rushed back to John's bike. John blurted out, "Piece of cake" as they packed their stuff onto the bike. Tim noticed a picture of a woman hanging loose in John's backpack and queried, "That her?" Believing it to be John's mother.

"Yes," John confirmed in a tone that didn't sound happy as he tucked the photo deeper into his backpack.

"She's pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, but everyone else says she's a complete psycho. That's why she's locked up in Pescadero, it's a mental institute. She tried to blow up a computer factory, but got subdued by force and arrested."

"No shit..."

"It is what is. Come on, let's go spend some money."

They set off on the bike, eventually taking the flood channels to get to their destination.

 _ ***POV shift to Eric***_

The Terminator and I had been riding through L.A. on our stolen bikes, for what felt like for hours, looking for John. Even though I didn't like to steal, I had to do so in order to complete the mission I _volunteered_ to take. Isn't that something? I was wearing sunglasses that seemed to contour to my face, which helped a good deal in keeping the wind out of my eyes. I had to focus, even though a part of me was in complete awe of all the buildings and abundance of traffic. It was the first time in my life I had seen L.A. without it being completely in ruins.

Then I noticed the Terminator was pulling over on the other side of the street. I followed suit and saw what it saw: Two kids riding dirt bike riding out of the flood channels. _"Is that him,"_ I thought to myself, and what the machine said next definitely confirmed it, "I have identified John Connor on that vehicle." We couldn't get to him right away from our current position, and a part of me still didn't want to let the cyborg take point, but it spotted John first, and I knew it'd be a better tracker than I would. I simply said, "Let's go." I then followed the Terminator. _"John… Even though you've never met me before in your life in this time period, you're still my comrade and friend, and I'll fight to the bitter end for you. Besides, I owe you my life for saving me from the darkness that was my own despair…"_

We eventually came upon a mall called the Galleria, and found John's bike in the parking garage. "He's here." The machine and I parked, and concealed our weapons on our persons, and we began looking around the mall. We swiped a box of roses along the way to help the machine better conceal its own shotgun. I didn't need one for myself because my long jacket had done well with concealing mine so far. A similar feeling of uneasiness started flooding my body again as we searched the mall. "I don't know why, but I have a suspicion that the liquid metal is here too." I whispered to the Terminator, and it replied, "It is possible. We must locate John Connor before the T-1000 does." Yeah, no kidding.

 _ ***POV shift to John***_

John and Tim were passing time in the arcade. John was playing Missile Command until it was game over, and then Tim told him, "I'm gonna get some more quarters, I'll be back." John replied, "Cool." After a few minutes went by, John was at the Afterburner machine, and he was on a roll with the game, but Tim came up with an alarmed look on his face.

"John!"

"Not now, not now."

"Listen, there's a cop scoping for you, check it out!"

John peeked over Tim's shoulder to see the cop, showing kids a photo and asking about him, and then one of them pointed into his direction and his mind went into red alert mode. Tim said, "Split man, just go," John simply said, "Alright." He knew Tim was going to try to stall the cop so he could get away, as he took off from the arcade machine and took the back door out of the arcade. John ran as fast as he could through the corridors. They seemed to be for the utility and maintenance workers of the mall, and they also served as emergency exits, but John didn't care. A cop was after him for who knows what, and something told him that cop was no ordinary officer.

He just kept running, passing by a guy that tried to tell him he wasn't supposed to be in there until he burst through a door and turned to his right, but found himself stopped in his tracks at the sight of two men walking in his direction. One was wearing a dark leather jacket and pants that made him look like a biker, had short brown hair, wearing sunglasses and seemed to be six feet tall. For some reason, he was carrying a box of roses. The other man was somewhat shorter than the biker guy, and he had short, dark brown hair himself, but wasn't wearing sunglasses. His outfit consisted of a long dark jacket that went down to his knees, what seemed like a white T-shirt, and grey cargo pants. He looked more like a drifter compared to the taller guy.

Suddenly, the taller man opened the box of roses to reveal a shotgun in his hand, the roses fell out as he readied it, and the drifter pulled a shotgun of his own, that was just like the taller one's, out of his long jacket and readied his. John turned and went back through the door he came through, and tried to go through the door on the side, but it was locked, he tried another one, but it was locked too. He saw the two men were through the door and they aimed their shotguns, and then the cop appeared from the other end of the corridor aiming his pistol in John's direction. John was petrified by the situation he was in. He seemed to be trapped between a rock and a hard place…

 **A/N: I know, cliffhangers are annoying, but that's part of the excitement! What do you think of my OC so far? I plan to put in an explanation of his past later on in the story. Reviews will be greatly appreciated!**


	4. Chapter III: Here to Protect

**A/N: Thank you, Mickol93, for your reviews! It means a lot to me to know I have people who are interested in this story. I hope I don't disappoint, and I hope I can attract more readers!**

 **Chapter Three: Here to Protect**

 _John Connor kept running through the corridor, passing by a guy telling him he wasn't supposed to be in there. He burst through a door and turned to his right, only to be stopped in his tracks by the sight of two men walking in his direction. Suddenly, the tall guy pulled a shotgun out a box of roses he was carrying, and the shorter guy pulled his own out of his long jacket. Terrified at the sight, John turned and ran back, trying to get through a side door, but it was locked. He tried another, but it was locked also. He looked back to see that the two men started aiming their weapons at his direction, and he looked back to see that the cop he was running from had just came around the corner at the other end, and aimed his pistol, also at John's direction. He was trapped…_

 _ ***Eric's POV; Moments earlier***_

The Terminator and I were on the second floor of the mall. I kept my focus on the mission despite being in awe of everything I was seeing. I never had the chance to go a mall, or anything like that. I had grown up in the ruins of L.A., hiding and running from the machines with my family… We heard about a human resistance, but they weren't doing so hot in fighting them off. Until, what seemed like out of the blue, John Connor's name was being spoken of everywhere we went. Whoever this man was, he was actually bringing the human race back from the brink of extermination, but I didn't think I'd ever get the honor of meeting him personally…

The cyborg brought me out of my thoughts, "The T-1000 is here." He pointed toward the arcade, and I leaned against the railing to get a better look. The liquid metal was in a police uniform, holding a photo in its hand, obviously asking the kids there about John. It was a clever disguise for any Terminator, but at the same time, it was dangerous for any human that would have no idea if they tried to ask it for help. I hated its choice of disguise, because my parents used to tell me about cops, and how they were people you could turn to if you were in any danger. I simply said, "Clever disguise. I feel sorry for anyone that ends up caught in its path." I then saw that John was in that same arcade, for I recognized him and the other kid by their clothing, and my heart sank with fear.

"John's in that arcade too!" I said and then I saw John take a back door out of the place, and the liquid metal was in hot pursuit, shoving any kid aside if they were in its way. "Damn it," as I smacked my palm against the railing, before turning to the machine.

"We have to get to him, _now!"_

The machine then turned and walked away from me, and I followed, instantly catching on to what it was doing, and it confirmed it. "My scans of the mall reveal a path that will allow us to intercept." I followed its lead, and before I knew it, we were going through a door that lead into a corridor and followed the path until someone burst through a side door and turned to our direction and saw us. As I looked at who the person was, there no doubt about it, it was John as a kid.

As much as I wanted to confirm it, the kid looked terrified, and knowing the T-1000 was closing in, there was no time to even explain ourselves, even though it would scare John even worse, the Terminator and I pulled out our shotguns, lock and load and all, preparing to fight off the liquid metal. John turned back and we followed. He was trying to get through a side door, but to no avail as he stopped in his tracks again, and we aimed our weapons at his direction, because sure enough the T-1000 appeared from around the corner at the other end, aiming its pistol our way. I didn't blame this kid for being so terrified. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as I then noticed that someone else was in that corridor, he appeared to be a maintenance worker. The poor bastard was in the wrong place at the severely wrong time.

I finally broke the silence, "Get down, kid!" John quickly ducked as close to the floor as the Terminator fired off a shot at the liquid metal, hitting its torso, and then I fired a shot at it, hitting its leg to phase it even more. Even though John was my mission, a part of me couldn't leave that worker in harm's way, because I knew the thing would start firing its pistol and wouldn't care about collateral damage. I told the machine, "Protect the kid," as I rushed forward and grabbed the worker and rushed him through the door we just came through.

Soon as I got us through and out of the potential crossfire, I heard the pistol going off. I told the worker, "Listen closely, I just saved you from becoming collateral, so I suggest you forget everything you just saw in there, you got that?" The worker responded, "N-n-no problem!" By then, the shotgun rounds were going off, and I told the worker. "Good, now get out of here." The worker ran out of the corridor.

I went back through the door, and saw the Terminator standing over the liquid metal, reloading its shotgun, but I knew that thing wasn't going to go down _that_ easily. I saw John peeking his head from the now-open side doorway, staring at the sight of the machine, and then looked back to see me approaching him, and he spoke to me, still having a scared looked on his face, "Who are you?" I responded, "A friend. Everything will be explained, but right now I need to get you out of here."

John nodded and then we saw that the liquid metal had gotten back up, and grabbed for the Terminator's shotgun, but it wouldn't let go, and suddenly they were slamming each other against the walls until they burst through one of them, and that was my cue to get John out _now_. "Come on," I said to him, and we moved quickly until we were back out into the parking garage, and John hurried to his dirt bike, trying to get it to start.

"What are you doing? We can take my bike!"

"Once I get mine started, follow me until we get to the flood channels!"

"Kid, you don't understand," I tried to explain, but he cut me off.

"Right now, I want to be on _my_ bike, so don't fucking argue with me!"

I sighed with a bit of aggravation. John of the future sure was right about his younger self. I got on my bike and holstered my shotgun onto it. Sure enough, the liquid metal came out of the door, and John's bike miraculously started right then and there. He sped off like there was no tomorrow, and I followed as close as I could behind him, the liquid metal being right behind us. We sped through the parking garage until we were out onto the street, going away from the mall. I kept close to John until we ended up into the flood channels, and he slowed down to a stop and I did the same.

"John, we're not out of the woods yet, we need to keep moving!"

He looked at me, "How the hell do you know my name?"

"I'll explain everything, but right now you're still in immediate danger!"

Suddenly, a truck that we passed by on the street during our escape crashed through a bridge's railing and landed in the flood channel, and it was headed straight for us. "Now do you understand what I was trying to tell you?" He didn't say a word, and we started speeding through the channels again, staying as close as I could to John. Thankfully, my bike could handle the maneuvers I had to do in these flood channels, and they seemed like they went on forever.

I knew the Terminator was close by, because I could hear it firing its shotgun at the truck. It was still behind us, and then we went under a low bridge, and the truck's roof was completely torn off as it went through, but the liquid metal was still intact, and somehow the truck was now more aerodynamic and it was gaining on us. It started hitting the back of John's bike, and it was only a matter of time before it managed to run John over, and I had to act quickly. "John, I'm gonna lift you onto my bike," I told him, knowing my bike would be faster, even with two people on it, and he nodded. I got as close as I could, grabbed the back the back of his shirt, and lifted him with all my strength, and seated him in front of me. Adrenaline sure works when you really need it.

We were finally gaining distance again when the Terminator sped by the truck and caught up with us. It pulled its shotgun out and shot out one of the truck's tires, making it lose its stability and crashed into a divide that acted as a support for one of the bridges, exploding into flames about a second or two later. I could feel the intense heat on my back as we barely escaped the blast.

We stopped to look at the flames, and the Terminator and I readied our shotguns. We cycled new rounds and aimed at some movement in the flames, but it turned out to be just a burning tire rolling towards us. No human being could have survived an explosion like that, but then again, it wasn't a real human that was in that that truck. We holstered our weapons, and I spoke to the machine, "Let's go." We took off, following the channels until we found an exit ramp. The cyborg and I may have succeeded in getting John into our protection, but our mission was far from over…

 **A/N: Hope you liked the in-media-res bit in the beginning of this chapter, and that I had the OC save that random worker in the corridor. I never liked that part in the movie of him becoming collateral like that, and I know others get killed by the T-1000 later on, but I wanted to have at least one person saved from its wrath. Reviews and favorites will be greatly appreciated.**


	5. Chapter IV: The Future and Past Collide

**A/N: I know I've been slow with a new chapter, I took a few days off. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Disclaimer: I only own this fan written story.**

 **Chapter Four: When the Future and Past Collide**

 _ ***John's POV***_

Over the course of the last hour, John's day had went bad the moment he was realized he was being pursued by a cop, and then his day went from bad to completely insane when it turned out that the cop was a Terminator trying to kill him, and then two men had come to his aid, one of them turning to be also a Terminator, helping him escape the cop terminator. Now he was riding passenger on the human drifter's bike, and the Terminator following close.

Many thoughts were racing through his mind as they were riding through the city, but he was focused on one in particular, " _A human and a Terminator working_ _ **together?**_ _How is that possible?"_ He couldn't take the silence anymore as he felt a touch of hyperventilation coming on and he made a T sign with his hands, "Okay, time out! Stop the bikes! Time out, come on, stop the bikes!" Without a word, the two did so, pulling into an alley and stopping.

John climbed off the drifter's bike and turned to face them both. Trying to get his bearings on the situation he's in, he asked the one who took a lot of bullets to protect him, "Now don't take this the wrong way, but you _are_ a Terminator, right?" His suspicion was instantly confirmed when it spoke, "Yes, Cyberdine Systems Model One Zero One." It pulled out its shotgun and proceeded to reload it.

John then looked to the drifter, "And you?" He responded, "The name's Eric Clark. I'd like to say it is good to see you again, but since you've never met me in this time period," he let a small sad smile form on his face and continued, "I'll have to go with, 'it's an honor to meet you.'" John seemed confused by what he said until Eric explained, "You and I fight alongside each other for a good part of the war." John's confused look turned into shock as he went over to the Terminator and put his finger into one of the bullet holes on its back and it bled.

"Holy shit," John said, in complete shock of what he was looking at, "this is really real, isn't it?" Eric replied, "It's as real as it gets, I'm afraid," as he reloaded his own shotgun also.

"Whoa…" He looked at the Terminator, "You're like a machine underneath, right? But sort of alive outside?"

"I'm a cybernetic organism, human tissue over metal endoskeleton."

John reached and felt the cyborg's face, feeling smooth metal underneath, and then felt one of its bullet wounds on its torso and found even more blood. Eric asked John, "Impressive, isn't it?" John spoke softly as if it was more to himself than a response to Eric, "This is intense… Get a grip, John. Okay." He looked up to both of them, pointing to the Terminator, "You're not here to kill me, I figured that part out for myself after seeing that you're working with him, " as he then points to Eric, "So what's the deal?"

"Our mission is to protect you," The cyborg said as it holstered his shotgun onto its bike.

"Yeah? Who sent you two?"

The Terminator replied, "You did. Thirty-five years from you reprogram me to protect you here, in this time." Eric added, "And I volunteered to come along." John simply said, "This is deep."

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric***_

I didn't blame John wanting to know what the hell was happening, and I kept my word on explaining everything to him the best I could. By nightfall, we found ourselves riding through the city again, John riding with the Terminator this time. I kept close and stayed vigilant as John started asking questions again while we rode.

"So this other guy, he's a Terminator like you, right?"

"Not like me," the cyborg said, "A T-1000. Advanced prototype."

"You mean more advanced than you are?"

"Yes, a mimetic poly-alloy."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Liquid metal," I added, and John continued talking with the machine.

"So where are we going?"

"We have to get out of the city immediately, and avoid the authorities."

"Listen, I gotta stop by my house, I want to pick up some stuff."

"Negative, the T-1000 would definitely try to reacquire you there."

"You sure?"

"I would."

" _It definitely would if it still had its original programming,"_ I thought, still being as vigilant as I can in case it did revert back. John then asked to stop at a payphone, which we did. "Look, Todd and Janelle may be dicks," he said as we walked up to the payphone, "but I gotta warn them." He looked for quarters in his pockets, but to no avail. "Either of you have a quarter?" I looked in my own pockets and shook my head. The Terminator suddenly smashed the payphone's quarter container and a bunch of them spilled out. I had to admit, that was pretty handy.

John proceeded to call his house, and the call went through. "Janelle, it's me," John said, and then I could hear her voice on the other end as I listened close.

"John?"

"Yeah, is everything alright there? Are you guys okay?"

"Sure honey, everything is okay, are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"John, it's late and I was beginning to worry about you. If you hurry home, we can have dinner together. I'm making beef stew."

John put his hand over the receiver and whispered to us, "Something's not right, she's _never_ this nice."

"John? Where are you?" Then I hear a dog bark, and a guy, which I believed was Todd, telling it to shut up. "The dog's really barking…" Then I had a quick flashback to how, during the war, we used dogs to spot Terminator units. I started suspecting personally the liquid metal was close by the residence.

Janelle spoke again after several seconds had went by, "John, honey, it's late. Please don't make me worry."

John whispered to us again, "Could he already be there?"

The Terminator took the phone, and I heard her ask again if John was okay. The cyborg started speaking, and it was mimicking John's voice perfectly, "I'm right here, I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're alright?"

The cyborg asked John, "What's the dog's name?"

"Max."

It spoke to Janelle again in John's voice, "Hey Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is he okay?"

"Wolfie's fine, honey. Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?" It hung up the phone then and there, and it looked to John. "Your foster parents are dead." Well, that was a pretty blunt way of breaking such news to a kid, but then again, how can machines know how to express empathy?

I looked at John as he was in complete shock, "I'm sorry, kid." I put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Seconds after, he decided to pace back and forth for a few minutes until he spoke, "How could Janelle have been alive if she's dead?"

I replied, "There was something we forgot to tell you, John. The T-1000 can also impersonate other people."

John was in even more shock, "Okay, I need a moment here. You're telling me that this thing can imitate anything it touches!?"

The Terminator added, "Anything it samples by physical contact."

"Get real. Like he could disguise himself as a pack of cigarettes?"

"No, only an object of equal size."

"Well, why doesn't it become a bomb or something to get me?"

"It can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way, but it can form solid metal shapes."

"Like what?"

"Knives, and stabbing weapons."

 **A/N: I know this didn't have any action at all, but even the best stories in existence can have a slow-moving part or two. I still hope you enjoyed this chapter, though.**


	6. Author's Message

_**Author's Message**_

Hello everyone!

I have a new chapter of Two Warriors ready to go, but there's something I want to get off my chest here. I've only been a member of FanFiction for going on 2 months. I've never been much of a book reader, but I really like the concept of this archive. Original stories, fan versions of different media, oneshots, original characters… This site feels like paradise for those who want to add to their favorite stories or change them up. FanFiction has given me the chance to change up or add to my favorite stories!

I'm still new to writing for FF, but I've been having a lot of fun writing Two Warriors, because Terminator 2 is one of my favorite movies. For those of you who've taken your time out to read my story, even if it's only a couple of chapters, I want to thank you! Even if I don't get much feedback, I still thank you for reading. I still have other ideas that I want to share with everyone on here, and I hope I can get them put into writing.

That's all I have to say. Thank you again, and have a good one. I'll have the next chapter posted sometime tomorrow.


	7. Chapter V: A Mental Breakout

**A/N: I know the original dialogue isn't word for word, and that I'm changing some details in certain scenes from the movie, but what fun is an AU story without changing some things up? Anyway, here's the next chapter.**

 _ **Chapter Five: A Mental Breakout**_

 _ ***Eric's POV***_

John was sitting on the hood of a vehicle that had been parked, and he seemed to have gotten over the shock of Todd and Janelle's deaths for the most part. I decided to bring out the expandable baton I had forgotten about until that moment and practice with it for a few minutes, in case someone besides the liquid metal decided to get in our way, while the Terminator stood guard, scanning the vicinity. By the time I decided that I had enough practice and put it away, John asked me, "You ever use one of those before?"

"Nope, I always got by with my fists whenever I had to put a stop to infighting within the resistance's ranks. You used to always call me a peacekeeper among the humans because I believed that we were all fighting the same enemy, and that we shouldn't fight each other. I know it sounds weird talking in past tense about things that technically haven't happened yet, but time works in strange ways when you think about it."

John replied, "With everything that's happened today, I'm willing to believe it."

I had a feeling that it wouldn't be easy for John to talk about it, but I decided to ask, "What happened between you and your mother?" He didn't seem to mind.

"It's a long story, but I'll try to keep it short before I get to the chase. You see, we spent a lot of time in Nicaragua and places like that. For a while there, she was with this crazy ex Green Beret guy, running guns, then there were some other guys. She'd shack up with anybody she could learn from so she can teach me to be this, 'great military leader.' Then she gets busted, and suddenly it's like, 'Sorry, kid, your mom's a psycho, didn't you know?' It's like they were telling me everything I was brought up to believe was complete bullshit, and I hated them for that. But everything she said really _was_ true. She knew, and nobody believed her, and I doubted her myself."

I had a gut feeling what John was about to say next. He hopped off the hood, "Listen guys, we gotta get her out of there." But the Terminator replied, "Negative. The T-1000's highest probability of success now will be to copy Sarah Connor and wait for you to make contact with her."

Knowing the liquid metal will just kill Sarah, I objected, "You do understand what you're saying, right? This is John Connor's mother we're talking about here! She may be a fighter, but she won't stand a chance against that thing! We can't just leave her there!"

Alarm suddenly took hold of John, "What are you talking about? What's gonna happen to her?"

It finally said, "Typically, the subject being copied is terminated."

John's eyes went wide, "Shit! Why didn't you tell me!? We gotta go right now!" It grabbed the arm of John's jacket, "Negative, she's not a mission priority."

"Fuck you! She's a priority to _me!_ " John said, trying to break loose of the cyborg's grip. I found myself grabbing its jacket and I gave it a piece of my mind also, "Listen to me, tin can! I didn't come all this way with you just to separate my friend from his mother permanently, so let him go _now_!" It didn't budge. I wanted to take my shotgun out and shoot it in its head, but I knew I'd only make the situation much worse if I did.

John added to his own objection against the 101, "What the fuck is your problem!? Damn it!" He started screaming for help, but the machine simply said, "This does not help our mission." It definitely didn't because his screaming drew the attention of two guys nearby, and John finally said, "Let me go!" It finally did, and John fell to the ground.

"Why the hell did you do that!?"

"Because you told me to."

John's anger quickly went away, "What?" He stood back up with a smirk on his fact this time. "You have to do what I say, huh?"

"That's one of my mission parameters."

"Prove it. Stand on one foot." It actually did, and I found myself chuckling a bit.

"Yes! Cool, my own Terminator!"

The two guys had come over to where we were, and one of them asked John, "You ok, kid?"

"Take a hike, bozo," John said. Maybe it was because he realized he had a Terminator in his command, and was feeling cocky and invincible as a result, but I wished he hadn't have said that.

The other guy said, "Man, let's get out of here," But the first guy wasn't having it, and said to John, "Fuck you, you little dipshit!"

"Dipshit?" He whispered to the machine to put its leg down and looked back to the guy, "Did you call _moi_ a dipshit? Grab this guy, I can't believe he called me a dipshit." The cyborg grabbed the guy by his hair and he was screaming. I could only imagine the pain of being held off the ground only by the hair. "Now who's the dipshit, jock douchebag?" The other guy got the machine to let go, but got his hand broken in the process.

Then the machine pulled out its pistol and cocked it, and my eyes widened at what was happening, it was about to shoot this guy. John and I both intervened, "No!" we managed to push its arm out of the way before the gun went off. We had saved this person's life. John shouted at the 101, "Put the gun down, now!" It did, and he told the guys, "Get out of here!" They took off without hesitation.

John had picked up the pistol and I looked at it and asked, "Why did you do that?"

John added, "Geez, you were gonna kill that guy!"

It simply replied, "Of course, I'm a Terminator." So this thing does remember its original programming… All the more reason for me to be wary of it.

John then said, "Listen to me very carefully, ok? You're not a Terminator anymore, alright? You got that? You can't just go around killing people!"

"Why?" This machine didn't understand the value of human life, and I didn't expect it to learn that anytime soon.

"What do you mean why? Because you can't!"

"Why?"

I decided to give it my own answer, "Let me put it this way for now: If you start shooting people, our mission will get extremely harder. Because we'll have the cops hunting us, and we'll just be leaving an easy trail for the T-1000 to follow. Do you understand _that_?"

"Affirmative."

John sighed, "Ok. Now that we cleared that up, I'm gonna go get my mom, and I order you to help me." He handed the pistol back to it, and turned to me, "Will you help me too?"

I didn't hesitate to answer, "I was in from the get-go." We set off to Pescadero. When we arrived, John had us stop just before we got to the gate.

The machine asked, "Why do we stop now?" John answered.

"Now you gotta promise me, you're not gonna kill anyone, right?"

"Right."

"You swear?"

"What?"

"Just put up your hand and say you swear you won't kill anyone."

It put up its hand and repeated, "I swear I will not kill anyone."

I added, "I'll handle the guard when we get up there."

"Alright, let's go." John said. We pulled up to the gate. I walked up as the security guard came out of his booth. He seemed to be an older-looking guy. He proceeded to tell us about the weekly visiting hours, and I replied as I held both hands out where he could see them, "Listen, sir, it's a dire emergency. Someone's going to try to kill a patient that's here." The guard said, "I'm sorry, but I can't let any visitors in, and besides, there's enough security here to keep intruders out, and I'll notify everyone else in the building."

So much for the easy approach. " _I'm sorry, pal, but it's for your own good,"_ I thought, as I gave the guard a quick distraction to make him look away, then I quickly flicked out my self-defense baton and struck him hard in the legs to make him fall onto his knees and then an equally hard strike to the head. I had managed to knock this guy out in only two strikes, and I was surprised at myself.

John, who had been watching, asked, "Is he dead?" I knelt down to check the guard's pulse, and he still had one. I replied, "Nope, just out cold. He'll be feeling those two hits in the morning though." I dragged the guard back into the booth, and hit the button to open the gate. I went ahead and took the guy's spare magazines for extra ammo. I got back onto my bike and we rode into the basement level parking. By the time we parked, the facility's alarms started going off, and I knew it wasn't because of us.

The cyborg said, "Someone must be attempting to escape the facility." We were boarding the elevator when I replied, "My money's on Sarah," thinking that if it really was her, it'd make our breakout mission easier. John added, "I wouldn't put it past her." The elevator was going up to the floor that Sarah would be on, and my thoughts were racing on how I was about to get the honor of meeting Sarah herself, but I stayed focused.

We had reached the floor, and when the door opened, the Terminator took point. "Wait here," it said as it walked out, and when it looked to the left, it seemed to focus on something, and I could only believe that it had found the one trying to escape. Whoever it was, however, started screaming, and John recognized the voice right away and ran out. "Mom, wait! Mom!" It was indeed Sarah. I followed and we turned the corner to see that Sarah was being apprehended by the staff of the place.

I could hear her screaming, "No" repeatedly. "Help her!" John said, and the Terminator replied, "Wait here," as it motioned him to stay behind, and I followed alongside the machine, readying my expandable baton as we approached them.

"I'll go left, you take right."

"Affirmative."

I could hear Sarah also say, "He'll kill us all," knowing she was referring to the Terminator. I was starting to wish I had taken point instead, but I was sure I could help calm her down. We approached them and the cyborg grabbed one and hurled him into the barred windows, and I struck another down with my baton, and a third one tried to take it from me, but I head-butted him and punched him hard in the stomach until he fell. A female security guard tried to hit the machine in the face, but it wasn't stunned at all as it grabbed her face and shoved her away and it threw away its sunglasses. I put away my baton.

All that was left was a guy in a suit that tried to give her some kind of shot, but he seemed to be in complete shock by what he had just witnessed, so we left him alone. I could tell that Sarah was confused herself as she sat on the floor, seeing that the cyborg, with the exact facial features of the one that tried to kill her before, had just helped her. She then remembered that it had help too and looked up at me also.

I looked back. Sarah Connor, the woman who gave birth to my commanding officer, who I also considered a close friend. The woman who fought tooth and nail to survive and teach him all she could. However, she seemed to have been on the verge of being completely broken by this place. I could only imagine the hell she's been through during her stay here.

John suddenly ran to her side, "Mom, are you ok?" She was still in shock and didn't hear him. "Mom!" She finally looked at him for a moment and then looked back to me and the cyborg. I extended my hand to her and she focused on me remembering what John of the future told me to say to her, "Sarah Connor, come with me if you want to live."

"It's ok, Mom, they're here to help," John said to her, "it's ok." Sarah then reached and grabbed my hand and I helped her onto her feet. Her eyes seemed to be wide from what I said. She finally spoke, "Those words… Who _are_ you?" Her reaction was clear enough for me to realize that Kyle had said those same words to her when they first met.

I answered, "I'm a friend who's here to help you and John." I then saw the T-1000 was down the hall standing behind a barred door, "We got company." She turned around to see what it was, and the liquid metal phased through the door with ease. The Terminator aimed its shotgun, "Go!" We took off as it ran interference for the three of us. We boarded the elevator, and the 101 barely made it in. The liquid metal opened the doors with its hands that had formed into prying tools, but I put a round from my own shotgun in its face, making it loose grip on the doors as they closed, and the elevator started going down. " _Not today, liquid tin can!"_

Sarah, completely spooked by what she just saw, asked, "What the fuck is that thing!? What the fuck is going on!?" I responded to her, "We'll explain later, right now we _have_ to focus on getting out of here!" Few seconds later, we heard a bang, and then a big blade started stabbing through the ceiling. The 101 and I kept shooting through the ceiling, and Sarah grabbed the 101's pistol and started shooting as well, but she got sliced on the back of her right shoulder in the process.

The elevator opened and we came out, and a police car had just shown up, and Sarah aimed at the driver out, firing a shot at the windshield for further intimidation. "Out of the car! Right now!" The cop came out, and the 101 hurled him into a column, the force of the impact knocking him unconscious. At least the T-1000 won't bother with him since he wouldn't pose as an obstacle. The 101 commandeered the driver seat and we took off in reverse as the liquid metal started chasing us.

We opened fire on it, trying to slow it down so we could get away. Sure enough, we managed to escape Pescadero, but the T-1000 had latched onto the back of the car, and it had smashed through the back windshield trying to get to John, but I managed to shoot another round at it before it hit John, and the 101 finished off the 1000's grip on the car, making it tumble and roll on the ground before getting up and running after us again, but the car was too fast for it and it gave up. I saw John reach out and knock off a piece of the liquid metal that was still stuck to the trunk. "Smart idea," I said, "For all we know, that thing would have been able to use that chunk to track us."

We got as far away from Pescadero as we could.


	8. Chapter VI: On the Run

**A/N: Mickol93, I hadn't thought about writing a sequel story for Two Warriors based on the Terminator 3 movie, because I didn't really like it as much as T1 and 2.**

 _ **Chapter Six: On the Run**_

It was a close call, but we succeeded in getting away from Pescadero and the T-1000. The Terminator shut off the headlights and flashing lights, as John looked back to see if it's clear. We found ourselves going down a road that had woods on both sides. John finished checking for anything behind us and turned to Sarah.

"He's not back there, there's nobody behind us."

Sarah asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." John then looked at the 101, "Can you even see anything?"

It replied, "I see everything," and I added, "It has its own night vision."

John simply said, "Cool."

Sarah suddenly told John, "Come here," and she wrapped her arms around him. At first it seemed like she was hugging John and I thought I was witnessing a reunion between mother and son, but I realized quickly she was only checking him for injuries. John realized the same thing and spoke, "I said I was okay."

Sarah spoke to him in a scolding tone, "John, it was stupid of you to go there! Dammit, you have to smarter than that, you almost got yourself killed! What were you thinking? You _cannot_ risk yourself, not even for me, do you understand? You're _too important_! Do you understand?"

I didn't say a word, because I knew this was between them, but damn… If it wasn't for me and the 101 helping John in getting her out, she probably would be dead by now, and this is the thanks the poor kid gets? Even though it wasn't my place to give my input on their relationship as mother and son, but witnessing what just happened still made me feel annoyed towards Sarah on the inside.

John replied, with disappointment in his voice, "But… I had to get you out of that place. I'm sorry." Sarah replied back, "I appreciate you thinking of me, I really do, but I'd rather have you be safe." At least she showed _some_ appreciation.

The 101 asked John, "What's wrong with your eyes?" He simply said, "Nothing," but I knew myself what was happening with the kid. He was crying, but trying to be tough guy by denying it. I felt bad for the kid self of my commanding officer and friend. I noticed that Sarah was looking at me and the 101 now and asked, "So what's the story with you two?"

I looked at her and explained, "My name's Eric Clark. I'm one of John's most trusted lieutenants in the resistance. John's told me a good deal. It's an honor to meet you, Sarah." She just nodded. I pointed to the 101, "This is a different unit from the one that tried to kill you in 1984." The cyborg added, "35 years from now, John Connor reprograms me to protect him in this time." Sarah then asked me "So, why are _you_ here?" I simply answered, "I volunteered to come along." She nodded again.

The cyborg suddenly said "I have located a hiding place." We pulled up to a gas station with a mechanic garage. The machine broke open the garage door and we, being John, the 101 and I, guided Sarah as she parked the police car inside, I went inside and saw the cyborg pull John in, and he went, "Hey! Watch it, lug nuts!" I chuckled heartily as I helped it close the door.

We got settled in for the night, and John and the cyborg patched up Sarah's wound while I held the light. John asked it, "Listen, do you know what you're doing?"

"I have detailed files on human anatomy."

Sarah spoke, "I bet. Makes you a more efficient killer, right?"

"Correct." After Sarah's wound was patched up, it was the cyborg's turn to have its bullet wounds tended to. John was looking at the bullet holes in the 101's jacket and then asked, "Does it hurt when you get shot?"

"I sense injuries. The data could be called, 'pain.'" I was still holding the light while Sarah removed the bullets from the cyborg's wounds. She asked it, "Will these heal up?"

"Yes."

"Good. If you can't pass for a human, you're not much good to us."

"How long do you live or last?" John asked.

"120 years with my existing power cell." I wonder what that's like, to live over a century without aging. I probably couldn't do it.

"Can you learn stuff you haven't been programmed with, so you can be, you know, more human and not such a dork all the time?"

It was silent for a few seconds, and then answered, "My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer, but Skynet sets the switch to read-only when we're sent out alone."

Sarah added, "Doesn't want you to do too much thinking, huh?"

"No." This gave John an idea, "Can we reset the switch?" Moments later, we had cut into the cyborg's head and it instructed Sarah how to open the CPU access port. It only took about a minute, but she had managed to reach the chip, and when she pulled it out, I could tell by the look on the cyborg's face that it had shut down completely. I waved my hand in front of it, and even John snapped his fingers, and nothing. I lifted its arm up and it stayed in place.

"Hard to believe it's as simple as pulling its chip out," I said.

"No kidding." John replied, and then turned around to ask Sarah, "Do you see the pin switch?" Next thing I hear is John screaming, "Mom, no!" I looked and saw that Sarah was holding a hammer and John had his hands on a table. I realized that she was about to smash the chip. I couldn't blame her though, she was almost killed by a Terminator before, one that looked just like the one that was with us in that garage, and she lost Kyle because of it, but John was trying to stop her.

"Out of the way, John."

"Don't do it!"

"Listen to me, John. We'll be better off with just the three of us."

"But it's the only proof we have besides Eric. Of the future and the war and all that!"

"Maybe." She looked at the cyborg, "I don't trust it." I wanted to help John reason with her, but I knew this was between them, and I wasn't about to come between a mother and her child in the middle of their argument.

"But it's one of my friends. It helped Eric save my life!"

"But John, you don't know what it's like to kill one of these things. If something goes wrong, this could be our only chance, so _move!"_

"Look, Mom! If I'm ever supposed to be this great leader, maybe you ought to listen to _my_ leadership ideas once in a while!? Because if my own mother won't, how can you expect anyone else to?" John was right, and the look of realization on Sarah's face confirmed it. I came over and added, "Sarah, if something _does_ go wrong, I'll protect John with my life. You both have my word on that."

She looked at me and then to John for a moment. She slammed the hammer down onto the table next to the chip, and said, "Alright, John. Play it your way." John switched the pin to write mode on the CPU and put it back in, and we reassembled the access port pieces into the cyborg's head. It came back online, and asked, "Was there a problem?" John simply said, "No problem." He looked at Sarah, "None whatsoever."

We finished up with everything, and John went to sleep in the police car while the cyborg stood guard, watching everything outside the window. Sarah just watched the machine, and smoked. I decided to go into the restroom to relieve myself and wash my face. After I washed my face, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had a bit of a beard. _"I look like hell."_ I chucked softly as that thought came to mind. I came back out and I situated myself in a spot a few feet away from Sarah. I let out a yawn and after a couple of moments of silent, she looked at me.

"How long had you known John? In the future, I mean."

"About five years."

"How did you meet him?"

"I was wandering the city ruins alone, while hiding from the machines, and then I was found by a resistance patrol that John had accompanied, and he took me in and under his wing. He trained me and taught me everything I know. We fought alongside each other in the war up until I volunteered to go back in time with the cyborg to protect John's younger self."

She nodded. I looked at John sleeping in the car, and I decided it was time to tell Sarah the truth, "I see a lot of his father in John." She looked at me with wide eyes, "You really knew Kyle?" I nodded, "Yep, I knew him. I was as close friends with him as I am with John. All three of us fought together in the war."

"I wonder why Kyle never told me about you."

"I could imagine why. He always focused on the mission first and other things after. That's likely why he never told you." She was silent for a few moments, probably taking in everything I just told her. I looked at a clock that was on a wall and it said it was about 12:00 AM.

"I'm gonna catch some sleep. Haven't had any since I made the trip."

"Can you trust that thing?" I knew with that question, she was reminding me of my word I gave.

"Sarah, I know how you feel about the cyborg, and you have every right to not trust it, but I assure you that you can trust John's judgement."

"The one who sent you back in time? Or the one sleeping in the car right now?"

"Both."

She didn't say another word and seemed to let down her guard and drifted to sleep. I followed shortly after. I ended up having a dream.

 _It was like an out-of-body type of dream. Sarah and John were sleeping in their spots, the Terminator was standing guard, and I saw myself sleeping in my spot. Suddenly, Kyle appeared in front of me._

" _Kyle?"_

 _He smirked at me, "It's been a while, hasn't it, friend?"_

" _I'll say."_

" _I see you're helping Sarah look after John, and a reprogrammed Terminator is also helping, I see."_

 _I nodded, "I am. Talk about irony that John himself would send back an identical machine." I chuckled. "You know he's your son right? He told me the truth about you."_

" _I know," he made a sad smile, "I just wish I was alive to be there for them."_

 _When he said that, I clenched my fist tight with anger. "Skynet will pay heavily someday, even if it's the last thing I do."_

" _Just don't let your anger cloud your judgement, kid. You're stronger than that."_

 _My clenched fist loosened, and I nodded softly. "You would have been proud of him, Kyle."_

" _I am," he smiled again, looking at Sarah and then John. "Look after both of them for me, will you?"_

" _I will. You have my word, just as much as John has it." We shook hands, "I'll see you again on the other side someday."_

" _You bet, pal."_

I suddenly had jolted awake, and I saw Sarah and John still sleeping in their spots, and the Terminator was still standing guard. I looked at the clock on the wall and it said it was just past 6 AM, and it was still somewhat dark. I looked to where Kyle stood in my dream, but he wasn't there anymore. " _Rest easy, my friend. As long as I'm alive, I'll look after them and carry on the fight."_ I got up from my spot, stretching and yawning as I walked over to where the Terminator was.

"You've been standing here all night?"

"Yes." Must be nice being so machine, that you don't need sleep.

"How much time do we have before we move on from here?"

"Not until daylight."

"I see… Listen, I don't know if you will be able to understand, or process, whichever it is, but thanks for standing guard while we slept."

It simply replied, "You are welcome."

I nodded and went into the bathroom to do the same thing I did last night. I looked into the mirror again, and ran my fingers against my thin but rough beard. I decided to sneak into the convenience store part of the station and grabbed a shaving kit, toothpaste, and a toothbrush and bring them back to the restroom. Thankfully there were no cameras.

After I was done with the items, I left them there, and gave my face one last wash before I looked in the mirror again. There was still a bit of a shadow on my face, but I felt completely revitalized and no longer worn down. I walked back into the garage, and the sun was finally coming up outside the window, and John and Sarah were awake. John noticed my face right away.

"Nice baby face," he said with a small chuckle. I knew he was making light that it wasn't a completely clean shave.

I replied with a smirk, "Thanks. Just be glad you don't have to shave for a good while yet, kiddo." The Terminator suddenly came out of the room it was in. "We'll have to use another vehicle. The authorities will be looking for the police vehicle."

I nodded and then it walked out and John followed. Sarah looked at me and made an approving comment of her own, "You do look much better. You remind me of Kyle in a way. He wore an outfit that was similar to yours."

I smiled sadly, "He did, huh? Maybe great minds really do think alike." She nodded approvingly. "Let's go see if they got a vehicle yet." We both walked out as Sarah put on a jacket she found, and it was fully daylight outside now. The Terminator pulled up in a station wagon, with John riding shotgun. It said, "We have to get as far away from the city as possible." Sarah got in the rear right seat, and I took the rear left. "Just head south," she said, and that's the direction we went and we kept going.

 **A/N: Sorry I kept you all waiting, things have just been hectic for me. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Reviews and favs will be appreciated!**


	9. Chapter VII: A Foreshadowed Nightmare

**Chapter Seven: A Foreshadowed Nightmare**

The Terminator kept on driving us south, albeit a little too fast for comfort until Sarah spoke up after we had passed by a passenger bus.

"Keep it under sixty-five. We don't want to be pulled over."

The 101 said, "Affirmative."

Then John spoke up about its response, "No, no-no-no-no. You gotta listen to the way people talk. You don't say, 'affirmative,' or some shit like that. You say, 'no problem. "If someone comes off to you with an attitude, you say, 'eat me,' and if you want to shine them on, it's, 'hasta la vista, baby!"

The machine repeated the last thing John said, "Hasta la vista, baby."

"Yeah, or, 'later, dickwad," and if someone gets upset, you say, 'chill out.' Or you could do combinations."

"Chill out, dickwad."

"That's great! See, you're getting it."

"No problemo."

I discreetly smiled over John teaching the Terminator how to be more human. Eventually we had to make a stop due to the engine overheating. We managed to stop at a roadside gas station that had a small restaurant next to it. I could smell the food when we had pulled up. It had been a long time since I had a hot meal. Sarah asked, "Any of you got cash?"

John answered with a smirk, "I got a couple hundred bucks. I'll give you half." John had the money in his hand, but Sarah quickly snatched it. "Mom!" She gave back some of it, "Get some food," and then just took off into the store. I could hear John grumble, "No sense of humor." As much as I wanted to chuckle, I spoke up, "You can't blame her though. The burden of knowing what's in the future could make a lot of people lose their sense of humor." He replied, "Yeah, but still." We got out of the station wagon and walked over to the food place.

John spoke to the machine again, "That's another thing. You can lighten up a bit yourself. This severe routine is getting old, okay? I mean, you're acting like such a geek. Smile once in a while."

"Smile?"

"Yeah, you know. Smile." He went up to an older woman that seemed to take the food orders, "Hi. Nice place you got here. How's business?" She replied with a bitter tone, "Give me a break." He turned back to us, "Ok, bad example." He looked around and pointed, "See that guy over there, that's a smile." I looked and saw this guy on a payphone, and his smile was kind of… off. The machine looked at us and tried to mimic that same smile, but it wasn't suiting it.

"That's good," John said, and I added, "Yeah, maybe you could practice in front of a mirror or something." It quickly went back to its usual expression. We got our food and Sarah, John, and I ate in the wagon. My food was a nice sized cheeseburger and a side of fries. It was a far cry from the scraps I was used to back in the future, but I welcomed it. I heard John offer Sarah some of his fries, but she didn't answer. I had finished eating and John and I got to check on the machine. It was putting radiator fluid in for the wagon.

John asked it, "Need any help?"

"No."

My attention was suddenly drawn to two little boys that were playing with what looked like toy guns, and they were arguing over who "got" who. It seemed to be in slow motion as I watched them, and it made me think about humanity, and how people always took for granted how precious the value of life really is. It never crosses their minds that their world as they knew it could end in nuclear fire in a matter of minutes. John, who was watching the two boys also, suddenly asked "We're not gonna make it, are we?" He looked to the cyborg, "People, I mean."

It replied, "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves."

I added, "People take life for granted, John. It doesn't occur to them that they're not promised tomorrow until it's too late"

He simply said, "Yeah. Major drag, huh?" Then the mother of the boys gathered them up and took off with them. Sarah then spoke up to the Terminator. "I need to know how Skynet gets built. Who's responsible?"

"The man most directly responsible is Miles Bennet Dyson."

"Who is that?"

"He's the director of special projects at Cyberdine Systems Corporation."

We got in the wagon, and Sarah rode shotgun this time, and I sat in the back with John. "Why him?" Sarah asked, and the machine continued as we took off down the road. "In a few months, he creates a revolutionary type of microprocessor."

"Go on. Then what?"

"In two years, Cyberdine will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdine computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they tried to pull the plug."

Sarah concluded, "But Skynet fights back."

"Yes. It launches its missiles against targets in Russia."

John joined in, "Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?"

"Because Skynet knows the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here."

Sarah replied with a sigh, "Jesus." I silently took all of this information in, and then I heard Sarah ask the machine, "How much do you know about Dyson?"

"I have detailed files."

"I want to know everything. What he looks like, where he lives, everything." I knew where she was going with this as the machine told her everything about Miles Dyson, but I decided not to say anything for now.

 **A/N: I know this chapter was a bit short, and I didn't make my OC as involved, but life's been getting in the way, and I plan to reveal the OC's past in complete detail in the next chapter.**


	10. Chapter VIII: Old Scars Reopened

**A/N: I know it's been a few weeks, but I decided to take a break from writing, and I believe I'm ready to get back into it and finish this story. Unless life gets in the way again. Anyway, here's a new chapter, and plus, what happened to the OC before he met John is finally revealed. Usual disclaimer: I don't own the copyright of the Terminator franchise or any of the characters besides my OC and this fan story.**

 _ **Chapter VIII: Old Scars Reopened**_

We drove until Sarah had us pull into a place that seemed abandoned. There were dead snakes lined up along the fence, there were a couple of campers and a bus, and a stripped down helicopter frame. Sarah asked us to wait in the wagon, as she got out and looked around. The cyborg and I had our weapons ready just in case.

"Enrique!" She called out and then spoke a little bit of what I believed to be Spanish. Suddenly a man popped out with a pump shotgun and took aim at Sarah. She quickly turned around and aimed her pistol at the man while the cyborg and I got out and aimed our weapons at the man also, hoping it would force him to stand down, which thankfully it worked. He slowly walked up to Sarah with his fingers away from the trigger.

The man spoke, "You're pretty jumpy, Connor."

Sarah signaled to us with her hand that it was alright as she replied to the man, "Et tu." She then spoke in more Spanish and sure enough they were hugging each other and then talking more in that language. The 101 and I finally stood down also, and John had gotten out too as we walked up to them and I could tell that he was calling for his family to come out also, and then he looked at John.

"Ey, big John!"

"What's up?"

The man asked John in Spanish, which I believed he was asking about me and the cyborg.

John replied, "They're cool, Enrique, they're with me." He looked at the machine, "This is... Uncle Bob," then he looked at me, "And this is Eric. Guys, this is Enrique."

Enrique spoke, "Uncle Bob and Eric, huh? Okay." He let out a small chuckle, and then a woman, which I believed to be the Enrique's wife, came up and hugged John and talked to him in Spanish also. Then Enrique held out a bottle of alcohol to us, "Either of you want a drink?" The cyborg just stared with his usual expression, and before I could reply, Sarah suddenly took the bottle from Enrique's hand and took a good sip. The machine asked John, "Uncle Bob?" John just shrugged.

Enrique started talking to Sarah, "Hey Sarita, you're pretty famous all over the TV! Pictures of you, John, your big friend, and they even got a sketch of your other friend here. Cops are going nuts looking for you!" I imagine the cops only had a sketch of my face because I managed to not get my picture taken by a bystander. While the man was talking, the machine was studying and analyzing this toddler it had picked up, and I heard John whisper to it to put the kid down, which it did.

Then Sarah got to the chase of why we were there, "I just came for my stuff. I need clothes, food, and one of your trucks."

Enrique replied, "Hey, how about the fillings out of my fucking teeth-"

" _Now_ , Enrique." She then looked at us, "You three, you're on weapons detail."

John took the lead, "Come on, guys." He led us to a metal sheet that was camouflaged into the ground and it revealed a small underground armory, but as we went in, I could tell it was loaded to the brim with weapons and ammo.

"One thing about my mom," John said, "she always plans ahead."

I pulled the tarp covering the weapons and looked down the rack until I saw the 101 grab a single shot grenade launcher. I looked at the launcher as the 101 inspected it and said, "I always liked seeing things get blown up," and I let out a chuckle, and so did John. The machine closed the barrel of the launcher after inspecting it and simply said, "Excellent."

I lost track of time as we inspected and looked over whatever weapons we could potentially need, and then John started talking, "You see, I grew up in places like this, and I just thought that's how people lived. Riding around in helicopters, learning how to blow shit up. Then after my mom got busted, I was put in regular school. All the other kids were into Nintendo."

I responded, "Must have been nice for them though. I never got to live a life like they had." John didn't say anything. Deciding to change the subject, I asked the machine, "So… 'Uncle Bob,' Are you ever afraid?" I don't know why, but at that moment, I was curious if machines could really ever have human emotions.

It simply replied, "No." Then I heard John ask, "Not even of dying?" It replied with the same answer. I asked it another question, "So you don't feel any emotions whatsoever?"

"No. I have to stay functional until my mission is complete. After that, it doesn't matter."

I nodded. I envied this machine in a way, but at the same time I started feeling sorry for it. I can't imagine going through life without any emotions. John suddenly said, "I have to stay functional too," then he mocked Sarah's words to him, "I'm too important."

Then the machine pulled a tarp off this mini-gun and picked it up. It looked at us holding it and gave us a sideways grin, and John said, "It's definitely you." I nodded in agreement.

More time went by, and I finally told John that I knew his dad, Kyle. He was surprised at first by the coincidence, but then he started asking me about him. As much as I wanted to tell him stories about my friendship with Kyle, I just told him that when this is all over, I would tell him everything I knew about him.

Eventually during that day, we found ourselves working on a truck that Enrique let us take. The machine and I did most of the work, and John talked some more, "Most of the guys my mom hung around with were geeks, but there was this one guy, he was kind of cool. He taught me engines, but mom screwed it up, of course. She'd always tell him about Judgement Day and me being this world leader, and that'd be all she wrote."

He then said, "I wish I could have met my real dad." The machine replied, "You will."

"Yeah, I guess. When I'm in my 40s, I think. He was sent back through time to 1984… He hadn't even been born yet. It messes with your head."

I responded, "Time travel sure does have an effect on you." I wasn't kidding. After I made the jump through time, it was a bit of a struggle during the first few minutes to get a grip on my reality, and seeing the city and the massive difference between the before and after of J-Day definitely left me awestruck. I wasn't born until after everything was in ruins.

"He and mom were only together for one night," John said, "She still loves him, I guess." I could imagine that she still would after all this time. "I see her crying sometimes. She denies it totally, of course, saying she's got something stuck in her eye."

The machine asked, "Why do you cry?"

"You mean people?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. We just cry, like when it hurts."

"Pain causes it?"

"Uh, no, it's different."

I added, "It's more like a different kind of pain."

John added also, "Yeah, it's like when there's nothing physically wrong with you, but you feel hurt anyways. You get it?"

The 101 simply replied, "No." Then it started the truck and it was running.

"Alright, my man!" John said.

"No problemo."

"Give me five!" John started teaching the machine how to give high fives and whatnot, and I joined in with the teaching. I let out a chuckle after the cyborg gave John a hard five and I could tell it hurt.

"Ok, that's good, that's good. Up high, five low, too slow." He had jerked his hand away before it could five him as a joke, and it had a bit of confusion and annoyance in its expression.

"I'm just kidding," John said, "Let's try it one more time." We just kept on going with the teaching, and then started teaching it how to give thumbs up. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Sarah was watching us.

 _ ***POV shift to Sarah***_

Sarah was watching John and Eric Clark teaching the machine to be more human, and she started thinking as if she was writing in a mental diary. " _Watching John with the machine and this man, it was suddenly so clear. They would never stop. They would never leave him, and they would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say they were too busy to spend time with him. They would always be there, and they would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers and brother figures who came and went over the years, these two, this machine, and this young man, were the only ones who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice."_

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric***_

Later on, I was helping John and the Terminator load up the weapons and supplies into the truck until suddenly John said to me, "Hey, Eric, why don't you go see if my mom needs help with anything?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, we got this."

"Alright." I turned around to find Sarah sitting at a wooden table some feet away, carving into it with a knife. I walked up and she looked at me.

"Oh, it's you."

I nodded, "Yeah, John asked me to ask you if you needed help with anything."

She replied, "Not at the moment, but thanks." I sat down across from her, and got a better look at what she was carving into the table. There were only two words, "No fate."

I decided to ask her about it, "What does that mean?"

She answered, "Oh, it's a part of a message that Kyle gave to me from John of the future." She didn't seem to mind explaining everything about it to me, and told me how the whole thing went. Maybe it was because of my connection to Kyle, but I didn't want to press it any farther than necessary.

After she finished, I found myself repeating the last part of the message, "No fate but what we make for ourselves… Imagine how different the world can be if more people live by those words." She simply replied, "Yeah."

Then she suddenly asked, "So what's the matter with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said you volunteered to come to this point in time with the machine. So either you didn't trust it at the time of your decision to volunteer, or there's more to it than just that. So which is it?"

She was right, I had my reasons for coming here. I let out a sigh and confided in Sarah. "Sarah, there's something I didn't tell you about the day I met John."

"I'm listening."

"But first I need to explain what happened to me before that day. About a week before I met John, I lost my parents to Skynet. An endoskeleton patrol found us and some others that were hiding in a tunnel and gunned down most of us, but my parents helped me get away. I wanted to fight them off, but they said, 'No, you gotta get out of here! You have to live!' Before they were killed, my parents told me that no matter what happened, I keep moving forward. The most painful part about it was I couldn't save them. I was 19 at the time, but losing both of them in one day still fucked me up. Then a week later, I found myself on my knees in the wide open of the ruins, with a pistol in my hand, and at that moment, I couldn't keep moving forward anymore. In short, John found me pressing the barrel of a pistol into my temple, on the verge of committing suicide. John talked to me, comforted me, took me in, and helped me keep moving forward. He became a good amount of things to me that day: My commanding officer, mentor, trainer, friend, and most of all, my family."

I found myself wiping away a couple of tears from my eyes before looking at Sarah again, "Then five years later, he was offering me a chance to escape the war by jumping through time, but I couldn't do it, so I volunteered to come here and protect John's younger self instead. Not only because I wouldn't have anywhere to go, but because I owe your son my life, and I intend to keep fighting alongside him."

Sarah had a look of sympathy for me, "John is lucky to have a friend like you, kid. I'm really sorry to hear about your family. You could have ran from the war, but you decided to keep on fighting, even to the point of travelling across time. Anybody for that matter would be lucky to have you in their life."

I nodded softly, "I appreciate the sympathy and words." A moment of silence passed between us until she confided in me about a reoccurring dream that she had about the nukes of Judgement Day devastating the planet. She had been fighting through her own hell too, and my heart went out to her. She had a couple of tears of her own. A moment later, she said something that sent chills down my spine, "Eric… Let's go change our fate." I looked at her with wide eyes. I _knew_ where this was going.

"You mean let's go kill Dyson?"

"Yes," she said as she grabbed the knife and stabbed the end into the table and left it stuck there, "I'm tired of living in the shadow of the nukes and the coming war afterwards. We can put a stop to all of the pain and suffering right now before it even begins!" I definitely knew from the moment she asked the Terminator about Miles Dyson that she would get the idea of killing him, but now that I had heard her case, I was starting to be more for it.

I wasn't a killer, but if taking one life meant saving three billion, then that was a burden I was willing to carry. Not only that, it would potentially be the ultimate revenge against Skynet for myself, Sarah, and Kyle. I only had one simple answer, "Let's go." We geared up and prepared to leave until John stopped me.

"Eric, where are you and Mom going?"

I told Sarah I'd be right along before I turned back to John, "Your mom needs my help in taking care of something. We want you to keep going south with 'Uncle Bob', and we'll find you tomorrow."

"Really? I saw you two loading weapons into the wagon. Is there something you're not telling me, Eric?"

I was usually a bad liar, but I kept a straight face, "John, it's nothing for you to worry about. We'll find you tomorrow, ok?"

He finally bought it, "Ok." I gently patted his shoulder and I got in the shotgun seat of the wagon and we took off. I had a feeling that if future John saw me right now, I'm sure he'd ask, "What the hell do you think you're doing, kid?" But then again, future John wasn't here.

 **A/N: Okay, this one was a bit long, but I hope it helps make up for my absence from writing this story! Reviews, favorites and follows will be deeply appreciated!**


	11. Chapter IX: Vengeance vs Right

**A/N: Sorry it took so long again, Thanksgiving happened, and to be honest, I've been playing some games I got on Black Friday, but I WILL finish this story, I'm not giving up on it. To answer Mickol93's question, I'll go ahead and clear it up now: No, I have no intention of pairing my OC with Sarah whatsoever. To Jack, who posted a guest review, but I didn't get around to approving it: I'm sorry I didn't get around to approving your review, I still have the email notification for it, and I wanted to say thank you for the positive words on my story. I realize it's gonna end up short, but like I said in my message I put in, I'm still a newbie at fanfic writing, and considering my first multi-chapter story is a T2 fanfic, I was trying to keep it from being too slow moving. Anyway, thanks to the favorites and follows so far, I hope you enjoy this next chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the copyright of the franchise, this is just a fan written version of T2.**

 **Chapter IX: Vengeance vs Right**

 _ ***John's POV***_

After Sarah and Eric took off in the station wagon, John decided to look for clues to figure out where they went. He found the knife stuck into the wooden table and the words, "No fate," carved into it and read them aloud.

"No fate... No fate but what we make." The Terminator was with him. "My father told her this. I made him memorize it in future as a message to her..."

Then he realized the cyborg wasn't understanding what he was saying, "Never mind. Ok, the whole thing goes, 'The future's not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.'"

The cyborg responded, "She intends to change the future."

"Yeah, I guess, but how? And why would Eric go with her?" Then something clicked in his mind. He figured out the answer, and he didn't like it. "Oh shit!"

The 101 replied, "Dyson."

"Yeah. Gotta be. Miles Dyson. They're gonna blow him away!" Then he was rushing to the truck, "Come on! Let's go! Let's go, let's go! Come on!"

 _ ***POV shift to Eric***_

I could tell Sarah was dead set on carrying out this personal mission. I still felt uneasy about it, but I was ready. This would be for John, Kyle, Sarah, my parents... Skynet was gonna pay with the blood of its creator for all of the pain and suffering it inflicted upon humanity.

Suddenly, Sarah asked me, "What was Kyle like to you?"

"Hmm?"

"It's gonna be a while before we get there, so we might as well pass the time with conversation. So what was Kyle like to you? When did you meet him?"

"Oh, I met Kyle after John found me and brought me back to the bunker for medical attention. Kyle was helping the medical team tend to the wounded at the time, and he cleaned and bandaged the wounds I had gotten from escaping the endoskeleton patrol that killed my parents. The first thing he ever said to me was that I looked like hell and that it was a miracle I didn't die from infection. I replied with sarcasm and said that was the nicest thing anyone ever said to me, and we both had a laugh about it, and we had been good friends ever since. Along with John, he helped teach me everything I know, and he was like the brother I never had."

Sarah responded, "I see. Were you there when Kyle went back to protect me?"

"In a manner of speaking." I told her that John ordered me to stand guard at a Skynet facility we were raiding while he and Kyle went deeper into it. That only John came out and ordered our squad to blow up the place. "He never told me what really happened to Kyle until he brought the machine and I to a chamber that turned out to be his own time displacement equipment room, and was about to send back the machine to protect his kid self"

Sarah processed what I told her for a moment, and finally responded again, "Why not send someone back to stop Judgement Day?"

"I asked him the same thing, but he said it should have stopped when you and Kyle defeated the first Terminator, but the war still went on."

I could tell that what I said made something click in Sarah's mind. "When I was locked up at Pescadero, I kept trying to tell them that Cyberdine covered up the incident, but they didn't believe anything I had to say about it. I tried to tell them that my nightmare wasn't just a nightmare, but a premonition, but they wouldn't listen. I believe even more now that they're trying to reverse engineer the technology of that Godforsaken machine."

"Which would explain why nothing changed... I told myself that I wasn't gonna kill anyone when I jumped through time, but if we're gonna take one life to save three billion lives, then that's a burden I'm willing to carry for John. I only hope he doesn't figure it out."

Sarah nodded, "John will understand someday." I noticed it finally got dark as we went on towards our target.

 _ ***POV Shift to John***_

John and the machine had found themselves on a race against time to stop Sarah and Eric from killing Miles Dyson.

The Terminator spoke up, "This is tactically dangerous."

John replied, "Just drive faster."

"The T-1000 has the same files that I do. It knows what I know. It might anticipate this move."

"I don't care, we gotta stop them."

"Killing Dyson might actually prevent the war."

John replied with some anger in his tone this time, "I don't care! Haven't you learned anything yet!? Haven't you figured out why you can't kill people besides what Eric said?"

The machine looked at him and gave a facial expression that said it hadn't.

John spoke again, "Look, maybe _you_ don't care if you live or die, but a lot of people aren't like that. We have feelings, we hurt, and we're afraid." Then he looked away, "You gotta learn this stuff, I'm not kidding, it's important." The machine kept driving in silence for the rest of the trip, and John looked out his window while Eric's words kept echoing in his mind, _"John, it's nothing for you to worry about."_

 _ ***POV shift to Eric***_

Sarah and I had made it to Dyson's residence, and we set up a few feet away from the pool they had, and Sarah took aim with the tactical rifle that had a silencer on it and a laser sight, and I was on the spotter scope. We saw a man that fit the Terminator's description that it gave to Sarah. It was definitely Miles Dyson, and the wide glass door made him wide open to be shot. I could almost hear the keystroke sounds coming from his keyboard. Sarah had her laser turned on and the red dot was right on his back.

Sarah asked, "Are you ready?"

I replied, "Yeah. We got this far, there's no turning back now."

Sarah was slowly squeezing the trigger of the rifle, ready to shoot, but suddenly I saw a remote control car hit Dyson's leg. Right went he bent down to pick it up, Sarah had fired a shot that only hit the computer screen. Dyson realized what was happening when he saw his now broken screen and ran for cover.

"Damn it!" Sarah exclaimed and then went full auto, emptying the entire magazine, and then tossed the rifle aside and pulled out her pistol. "Let's go!" She told me as took point and I followed from behind, wielding my pistol also, while she rushed on ahead of to chase down Dyson.

I only took a second to take a look at the damage that had been caused to his personal office, and it was trashed by the gunfire. I heard a couple of gunshots, and then I heard a child scream, "Daddy" and a woman screaming for the child, and then I heard Sarah barking orders at them. _"The Terminator didn't mention anything about this guy having a family,"_ I thought to myself, and it started shaking my determination to do this.

By the time I had caught up to Sarah, I saw the man himself, and he did have a wife and a son. The son probably wasn't in double digits in terms of his age yet, and he was begging for Sarah to not hurt his daddy, and the woman was terrified. Sarah had managed to hit Dyson in his shoulder and he was on the floor.

I started having guilt from the sight of the whole scene unfolding, but I still had my pistol out. _"Are we really about to take this kid's dad away from him,"_ I questioned myself mentally. Then Dyson begged Sarah as he was bleeding from his shoulder, "Just let the boy go, please..."

Then Sarah replied, "Shut up, shut up, shut up! It's all your fault, motherfucker, it's all your fault!"

Dyson was extremely confused by her words now, "What...?" This man had no idea what he would eventually be responsible for.

I suddenly remembered again how I lost my parents, and how I told myself that I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It probably would have been a different story if this guy was a single man with no family of his own, but he did have a family, and I couldn't do this to them.

I made a split second choice and I found myself aiming my gun at Sarah. She looked at me with a bit of shock while still focusing her gun on Dyson, "What the fuck do you think your doing!?"

"I can't let you do this! Stand down!"

"Why are you having second thoughts now!? We can put a stop to all of the suffering before it begins!"

"Because I can't have taking a dad away from his wife and child like this on my conscience! Think about your own son and if something ever happened to you! If we kill this man, we'll be no different from them whatsoever!"

Even though the family were completely confused and terrified, Sarah knew what I was talking about. If we had killed Miles Dyson to change the future, we'd be no better than Skynet or its Terminators. She slowly backed away from Dyson. I had gotten through to her. She rested against the wall and slumped down, sighing remorsefully.

I slowly put away my gun and I heard a vehicle pull up, then a couple of seconds later, I heard John's voice exclaim, "Shit, we're too late!" The sound of the door breaking open followed, which was obvious proof to me that the cyborg was with him. He did figure out what we were gonna do and he came to stop us. They came in and saw us and he went straight to his mom as he ordered the machine to check Dyson and his family.

No words could come out of my mouth as I watched John talk to his mother.

"Look at me, Mom," he said as she did, "Are you hurt?"

She replied with guilt present in her voice, "I almost... I almost... Hold me..." John hugged her tight while she cried.

John comforted her, "It'll be okay. We'll figure something out, alright?"

They looked at each other in the eyes as Sarah asked, "You came here to stop us?"

"Yeah, I did."

"I love you, John. I always have."

"I know," John replied as they hugged again. I decided to step outside for a few minutes for a breath of the cool night air and reflect on what just happen. John must be completely disappointed in me for even going with Sarah to do what we tried to do.

"Eric," I heard John call out to me as he followed me outside, I wondered what he was gonna say as I turned around to face him.

"John... I..."

He interrupted me, "Listen, I'm glad you and my Mom didn't go through with it. I am curious though, what stopped you?"

"Seeing that he had a wife and kid, and I just couldn't have taking him away from them like that on my conscience. For your mom, I had to tell her that we'd be no better than Skynet if we killed him, which got through to her."

John nodded as he listened, "Sounds like you went through something similar in the war."

"I did, I lost my parents to Skynet. I was wandering the ruins alone afterwards, and I had lost the will to live, but you found me, and helped me keep going." I left out the specific of me having a gun to my own head when he found me, because I felt it was something a kid didn't need to know. "Listen, all you need to know for now, is that I owe you my life, John, and I intend to keep fighting the war with you until it's over, even across time."

He nodded, "I see now why I let you go with the Terminator. You're a good man, Eric." We shook hands and went back inside to see the machine tending to Dyson.

"Deep penetration. No shattered bone. Hold here," it moved the wife's hand to the wound, "The pressure should stop the bleeding."

We walked up to them, and Dyson asked, "Who are you people?" John pulled out and opened a blade, and told the cyborg to show them, meaning it was gonna cut a part of its skin off to show them what it really is. John took the kid out of the room and the machine proceeded to slice open the skin of its arm, and in seconds, it had ripped the skin off, revealing the endoskeleton arm and hand. Dyson and his wife were in complete shock and terror at what they were seeing.

"Now listen to me very carefully," the machine said to them. After some time, we found ourselves in their dining room. Dyson had his arm in a sling for his shoulder wound, and listened to the Terminator as it told him everything about the future. Skynet, Judgement Day, everything. It's not every day you find out you would ultimately be responsible for three billion deaths. He took the revelation decently.

He finally spoke, "I think I'm gonna throw up." John, the machine and I sat at the opposite side of the table from Dyson and his wife, while Sarah sat on top of a counter smoking a cigarette. He looked at us, "You're judging me... on things I haven't even done yet. How were we supposed to know?"

Sarah spoke up, "Yeah... Right... How were you supposed to know?"

She seemed like she was about to continue talking, but I decided to speak my piece before she did, "That's the problem with people, Miles. Nobody wants to consider that what they try to do might backfire tragically on them. People ask how they were supposed to know, but they never stop to think whether they should even do something of such magnitude, your microprocessor for example. Did you really think computerized automation would be some ultimate benefit for humanity? It may sound great on paper, but the truth is, whenever you try to have computers and machines do your work for you, it's just asking for disaster. Yeah, humans make disastrous mistakes too, but we're much less likely to fire nukes."

Sarah replied, "He's right. I was about to say the same thing, but harsher."

John spoke up, "Now we have to figure out how to stop this from happening."

Dyson's wife decide to ask, "Does this mean we'll be changing the way it goes?"

Dyson answered, "That's right. There's no way I'm gonna finish the processor, not now. Forget it. I'm quitting Cyberdine tomorrow."

Sarah responded, "That's not good enough."

"No one must follow your work," the machine added.

Dyson nodded, "Then we'll have to destroy everything at the lab. The files, disk drives, everything and everything I have here, down to the last piece of paperwork. I don't care..." Then he asked something that confirmed Sarah's suspicions as well as my own, "The chip, do you know about the chip?"

"What chip?" Sarah asked.

He looked to Sarah, "They keep it in the vault at Cyberdine," then he looked to the machine, "It must be from the other one like you."

"The CPU from the first Terminator," the 101 said. I knew it the moment Sarah told me about what she believed happened to it after she defeated it. The war went on because traces of the cyborg sent to kill Sarah were left behind, and someone found those traces. They thought they could reverse engineer whatever technology they could find. If they only knew what they were getting the human race into...

"Son of a bitch, I knew it!" Sarah said as she got off the counter and paced back and forth, and I thought I could hear her add, "Those lying motherfuckers," under her breath.

Dyson explained, "They told us not to ask where they got it. It was scary stuff, radically advanced. It was smashed, it didn't work, but it gave us ideas, took us into new directions, things we would have never thought of... All of my work is based on it."

"It's gotta be destroyed," I said to him.

"Can you get us in? Past security?" Sarah asked Dyson.

"I think so, yeah. When?"

I stood up from my seat, "I think now would be as good a time as any."

Dyson simply responded, "Okay."

 **A/N: It's getting close to the end now. I don't know how many more I'll make to finish this story, but I will finish it. Thanks again for reading!  
**


	12. Chapter X: Uncharted Territory

**A/N: We're getting closer now. I want to take the time to thank everyone who's read my story so far for their patience in between chapters, and also to everyone who's favorited, followed, and even left reviews on the story. I know I've been slow with the chapters lately, but I hope you'll find the rest of them worth the wait.**

 **Usual Disclaimer: I don't own the copyright of the Terminator franchise, just this fan written story.**

 **Chapter Ten: Uncharted Territory**

 _ ***Eric's POV***_

Miles sent his family to go to a hotel while we planned out how to get into Cyberdine's labs while gathering the paperwork related to the processor that he happen to have in his personal work space and burning it. I used the bathroom to wash my face and took one more chance to look at myself in the mirror before we set off. I saw someone who was once at the point of giving up and ending it all, but he found friends who helped him keep going. _"I'm gonna keep fighting until the war is over."_ When I came out, the Terminator was waiting for me and it stopped me before I met up with the others.

"Eric Clark, there is something I must tell you."

I was a caught off guard a little bit by this, but I let it continue, "What is it?"

"Before we went through the time displacement, my scanners showed there was a fourth in that chamber with us."

"Really? I didn't see them in there. Why would they hide?"

"My conclusion would be that it might have complicated the flow of time. Because the file my scanners pulled up from that person had your name, but his age was significantly older than yours."

I was shocked by this revelation. Was an older version of myself in that chamber with us? How could that even be? Was it because I decided to come here instead of staying in the future? Did John of the future know I'd make the decision to come here and just nudged me along? I didn't have time to think any more about it.

"I wish I could figure out how and why now, but it's gonna have to wait. Thanks for telling me. "

"You are welcome. When this is over, perhaps you will be able to live your life in peace."

"I've never had a peaceful life. I don't know what I'll do when it's all over."

"As John Connor said, you will find a way."

It was funny, listening to a machine talking to me about life and whether or not I'll live my life peacefully. I was somewhat distrustful of the Terminator when we got here, but I admit, I've grown to like this machine, although I wasn't about to let my guard down.

"Let's just get back to the others."

"Affirmative."

We joined back up with the others and we finished going over everything. We set off to Cyberdine, and while we were en route, I had a thought: Judgement Day and the war that followed were ahead for humanity, but now, five of us were attempting to divert the course of history. I could only imagine what the others were thinking, but it was a silent trip until we finally arrived. We made our way inside and walked up to an older looking guard at the lobby desk, and Miles did the talking with the guard.

"Hi. Um, Carl, right?" The guard didn't reply, and his facial expression seemed blank. Miles continued, "These are friends from out of town, I thought I'd show them around."

The guard finally responded, "Now, Mr. Dyson, you know the rules concerning visitors in the lab. I need written authori-"

" _Guess the easy way in isn't gonna work here either,"_ I thought as the Terminator, Sarah and I pulled out our pistols at the guard.

The machine spoke, "I insist." The guard was about to push some alarm button that must have been under the desk, but Sarah caught on quick and warned him, "Don't even think about it."

We moved him away from the desk and John got out some duct tape to tie him up with. I added my piece to the guard, "Just know this, we're not here to kill anyone." The guard seemed a bit relieved, and then we moved him and left him in the restroom.

We continued our way up to the lab. Miles began to explain, "It takes two keys, turned simultaneously, to open the vault," he showed that he had one of the keys, "The other is in a locker at the security station." We got to the station and Miles got out his card and swiped it through the card reader on the locker containing the other key, but it gave a red light and emitted a sound that meant the card was denied.

"My card should access this," Miles explained as he tried two more times to no avail.

"What is it?" Sarah asked.

"Damn it," Miles exclaimed, and checked the monitors, "The silent alarm's been tripped."

"Someone must have found our guard pal," I speculated.

After looking more into it, Miles explained, "It's neutralized all the codes for the entire building. Nothing will open anywhere now. We have to abort."

"No," Sarah told him, "We go all the way. Okay?" I added, "Miles, we're gonna make it through this." He finally nodded to us and then John spoke up, "You guys get started on the lab. I can open this." He had some kind of electronic machine with a card wired to the equipment.

I looked to Sarah, "Go, I'll stay here with John." She nodded and went on with the others. I watched John work on the security swipe and had a couple of flashbacks to being in the bunker with him as he reprogrammed Terminators and worked on other computer equipment.

"So how often do I do the hacking stuff in the war?"

"Quite often."

Suddenly, Sarah yelled, "Boys, fire in the hole!" We covered our ears best we could as we then heard the explosion and felt strong vibration that came with it, and then a loud alarm started going off. I went to see what happened, and I saw the blown open door into the lab, and the machine had walked in with the grenade launcher as some stuff was being sprayed into the lab. I let out a chuckle under my breath after realizing that the 101 had made its own easy way in.

Sarah was about to walk in, but Miles stopped her, "Wait! You can't go in there! The fire set off the Halon system! We have to wait until the gas clears!"

Then the machine came back through and was carrying gas masks, "Put these on." They put them on and went on inside, and I went back to John as he used his machine to pull up a security code. After some time, he had a code on his screen, and input it on the keypad next to the card reader, and then a green light came on and a sound emitted that meant that access was granted.

"Yes," John exclaimed as he opened the door to the locker and grabbed the other key. "Easy money," he added. The way he said that made me think that he's used that hacking tool before, but I didn't say anything. I could only tell him, "Good work, kiddo."

"Thanks," John replied as we moved away from the station to join up with the others, and in a different room, we saw a helicopter with a searchlight hovering outside the wall of glass that made for a massive window.

"Uh oh," John said, and then we went to check the camera monitors. The outside of Cyberdine was crawling with police now. John exclaimed, "Oh shit!"

I added, "Yup, things just got much harder for us. Let's go, John." We hurried up to join the others.

"Piece of cake," John said as we came in, and he showed the other key in his hand. They had wrecked most of the lab and were now rigging explosives to incinerate what's left.

"We got company," I added.

"Police?" Miles asked.

"How many?" Sarah asked.

"All of them, I think," John answered.

"Go, I'll finish here," Sarah told John and Miles.

"Come on," John told Miles as they prepared to go into the vault.

"I'll take care of the police," the Terminator said as it took off outside the lab.

"I'm coming with you," I told it and followed it.

"Hey wait, you swore!" John told the machine. He was reminding it that it swore that it wouldn't kill anyone. It turned back to look at John with a mischievous grin and replied, "Trust me."

I told John while letting out a smile of my own, "We got this." John nodded and we went outside the lab to prepare to deal with the cops.

The Terminator had brought the mini-gun, and I took out a light machine gun that had a 200-round box magazine from one of our carrying bags. I had picked it out from Enrique's personal armory. I also took off my jacket and strapped on some body armor. We went into the room with the wall of glass. The 101 shoved a desk through the window to shatter it and we stepped forward to look at the scene before us.

There were quite a few cop cars and there were cops ready to open fire at us, and that same helicopter was in front of us, shining the searchlight at us. I had a small flashback of hiding from a Skynet Hunter Killer's searchlight during one of my missions in the war.

"You ready for this?" I asked the Terminator, and it said, "No problemo." I let out a small smile at the realization of something: A human and a machine were fighting alongside each other to stop Judgment Day. The pilot got on the loudspeaker and said, "You two at the window. Drop your weapons and place your hands on top of your heads."

"Not a chance, pal," I said under my breath and suddenly the 101 opened fire on the helicopter to make it move away. I could hear the pilot still on the loudspeaker say, "That's a damn mini-gun!" Then it started shooting the cop cars until they were no longer usable, all while avoiding shooting any of the cops. I knew my weapon paled in comparison to the mini-gun, but I still did my share of shooting anyway, shattering the windows on the cars and shooting out the tires, and I shot at some cops themselves to keep them from shooting back, never hitting any of them.

Then we ran out of ammo for our weapons and dropped them. The Terminator got out the single shot grenade launcher and shot two rounds at the least damaged vehicles to put them out of commission. Things finally got quiet for a moment as I noticed the cyborg's eyes scanning the destruction, and then it said to me, "Human casualties: Zero."

I smiled on the inside, we succeeded in slowing down our potential pursuit without killing anyone. "Let's go," I said as I hurried out of the room to avoid being shot, since I wasn't a machine. The 101 took its time walking out of the room while loading a new round into the launcher as the cops returned fire into said room.


	13. Chapter XI: Surrounded

**A/N: Okay, first chapter of the New Year! I hope everyone had a fantastic time with the holidays and New Year's Eve, and thank you for your patience in between chapters!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the copyright of the Terminator Franchise, just this fan-written story.**

 **Chapter Eleven: Surrounded**

 _ ***John's POV***_

John and Miles made their way to the Cyberdine vault, and got on opposite sides of the vault door.

Miles told John, "At the same time, turn it to your left. One, two, three, now!" They turned their keys simultaneously and the door unlocked for them. They got inside and Miles opened the panels containing the endoskeleton arm and CPU, which belonged to the original Terminator that was sent to kill Sarah. They were encased in glass containers.

Miles started explaining, "In order to get that out, you have to…" But John had already knocked the container for the arm to the floor, which shattered the glass, and then smashed the CPU's container. He picked them both up and said to Miles, "We got Skynet by the balls now, don't we? Come on, let's book." They left the vault and joined back up with Sarah in the lab.

"Ready to rock?" John asked his mother, and she answered, "Ready." John stuffed the arm and the CPU into the backpack.

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric***_

The Terminator and I returned to the lab, and it said, "Time to go. Now."

I added, "Yeah, after what we just did, there's no doubt they'll be raiding this place any moment." I saw Sarah handing John a gas mask and she warned him that the police will use gas.

"Let's get started on the door. Eric, hand me the detonator," Sarah said and I went to grab the remote detonator for the explosives. Miles was standing next to me when suddenly I heard a door being kicked open, and my instincts told me to duck and cover, which I did, and yanked Miles down to cover with me as gunfire started filling the room. Sarah managed to get to cover also, and the 101 pulled John out of the lab, despite John yelling for his mother.

The people that came into the lab were shooting at us, and it didn't seem like they were running out of ammo anytime soon. We were trapped. I looked at Miles next to me, he seemed a bit shaken by the unfolding turn of events, but thankfully my quick actions kept him from being shot. I looked over to Sarah, and she had her pistol out.

"This is bad! They sent in SWAT!" Miles said, and I replied, "No kidding. These guys aren't fucking around for sure." We were trapped, and our options got extremely limited. Sarah hollered over at us, "Any ideas before we're shot to death?" One suddenly came to mind, but it was a long shot.

I gave them the idea, "Miles, think you can pretend to be a hostage?" He made no arguments about it, and nodded in agreement to it, and Sarah heard the idea and nodded to go along with it also. I explained "You know this means we'll be parting ways, right?" Miles nodded again, and I continued, "When they get you to safety and ask you what happened, you can tell them we forced you at gunpoint and threatened your family, but you have to get them clear of the lab too, because we're gonna blow this place." He nodded in understanding. "Okay. Take care of yourself, Miles, and your family." He replied, "You too." Sarah nodded farewell at Miles also.

I shouted at the cops from cover, "We have a hostage!" That made the SWAT officers stop shooting, and I continued, "We have Miles Dyson hostage! Let us leave, or he dies!"

I heard one of them ask, "How do we know you won't kill him?"

I replied, "Because we'll let you have him once we leave the lab!"

The cop finally told the others to hold their fire, and I stood up from my cover, holding Miles in front of me like a human shield, my pistol aimed at his head, and I kept the remote detonator out of sight from SWAT while Sarah and I slowly backed away to the exit into the security station. I let Miles go and Sarah and I ran back into the station to join back up with John and the Terminator. John hugged his mother for a quick moment, and we braced ourselves when the Terminator blew open a path with the grenade launcher for our escape. We found ourselves running down the hallway to the elevator.

 _ ***POV Shift to Miles***_

Miles knew he had parted ways with Eric, Sarah, John, and the Terminator the moment Eric let loose of the faux hostage grip he had on him. Some of officers came closer to Miles as the rest checked the lab.

"Are you ok, Mr. Dyson?" One of them asked him.

"Yes, but we gotta get out of here! They have a remote detonator, and they're gonna blow this lab at any moment!"

The officer looked and noticed the orange barrels. Thankfully, there were no cameras inside the lab, and even if there were, any proof that Miles was working with them would be destroyed by the explosion.

"My God…" The SWAT officer then grabbed Dyson, and ordered his team to fall back and leave the building immediately. They manage to exit the building and take Dyson to safety, and sure enough, a big explosion destroys the whole lab floor of Cyberdine. Dyson watched the lab he worked in for years go up in flames, and his work that would have ultimately destroyed most of the world with it.

Miles spoke under his breath as if he was talking to the 4 he just met tonight, "Thank you for helping me see what's more important. Take care of yourselves." He had decided to focus more on being with his family rather than being a workaholic. He watched SWAT re-enter the Cyberdine lobby, while the lead officer told Dyson that it wasn't safe there, and had another SWAT agent take Dyson away.

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric; Moments earlier***_

Sarah, John, the Terminator and I made it to the elevator and took it all the down to ground floor. As we rode the elevator down, the Terminator spoke, "We are now a safe distance for detonation." I got the detonator out, and Sarah and John nodded at me. "Here goes nothing," I said as I pushed the button, and I could only hope there was no collateral. Suddenly, there was a loud noise and a hard rumble that shook the elevator.

It lasted for a moment or two before ending with a loud clank. We had made it to the ground floor, and the Terminator stepped out to see if there was any more obstacles in our path of escape. SWAT fired a metal cylinder at us, and it started leaking a cloud of gas. "Tear gas! John, shut your eyes! Sarah, John, and I shared the two gas masks to keep ourselves from being overwhelmed by the fumes. The Terminator told us, "Wait here, I'll be back." We nodded as it went off to clear our path.

 _ ***POV Shift to the Terminator***_

The Terminator marched forward to the SWAT officers, who had their weapons aimed and ready to fire. One of them tried to order the machine to get down on floor facing down, but the machine didn't comply and kept walking towards them. They finally decide to open fire, but little did they know what they had gotten themselves into. The men kept shooting, and they had to have realized that something wasn't right when, what they thought was a human, wasn't going down. The machine pulled out a pistol and shot the officers in their kneecaps, and they went down one by one. Then it grabbed a 6-round grenade launcher, filled with gas rounds, from one of them, and shot two rounds at the last two men standing to faze them. When it was done, the majority of the men in the lobby were on the ground, in pain from the gunshot wounds in their knees.

It stepped outside to face the rest of the SWAT team, and it fired the rest of the gas rounds from the launcher at the remaining men. The gas knocked most of them out cold. It made its way to a SWAT van, and left the empty launcher with one of the unconscious officers. It got in the driver seat, and found the keys in the visor of the van. Apparently, John taught it earlier to look for keys in a vehicle first before hot wiring it.

The van started, and the machine crashed through the Cyberdine lobby, the injured men managed to avoid the van as the cyborg spun the van to where the back of it was in the hall. It looked back and saw, John, Sarah, and Eric emerge from the gas cloud and running towards the van.

They hopped in, and Eric told the machine, "Alright, get us out of here!" The machine wasted no time in speeding out of Cyberdine and the building's perimeter. They found themselves on the express way.

 **A/N: I hope you liked that big twist where I saved Dyson from dying. Another chapter closer to the end!**


	14. Chapter XII: Chased Again

**Chapter Twelve: Chased Again**

 _ ***Eric's POV***_

We had barely escaped Cyberdine in one piece, and now we were riding in a SWAT van down the expressway, gaining as much distance as we could. I was trying to get my bearings after being in a cloud of tear gas for what felt like forever, while Sarah was grabbing multiple vests of body armor and covering up John with them. I still was wearing mine, and left my jacket behind.

"No matter what happens," Sarah was saying to him, "you stay under these vests, got it?"

John nodded and answered, "Yeah."

I witnessed Sarah placing a light kiss on John's forehead, and I could only imagine how much that meant to him. She then covered the doors with the vests as I turned my attention to grabbing a rifle from the armory rack in the van and locked and loaded a fresh magazine. Sarah looked to see if we had any pursuers behind us, and she suddenly said, "Chopper coming in!"

The Terminator replied, "It's _him._ " The liquid metal was back, and it somehow managed to commandeer a helicopter to chase us down.

"Just perfect," I said under my breath as I prepared to fend off the liquid metal. Sarah grabbed a rifle too, and we took turns returning fire at the chopper. Some of the liquid metal's shots almost got John, but were stopped by the vests, and Sarah told John to stay down. We kept firing at the chopper for a couple of minutes until one of the T-1000's shots got Sarah in the leg.

"Sarah!"

"Mom!

The Terminator saw how close the chopper was, and decided to slam the brakes to make it crash into the van, which it worked, and for a moment it seemed like we got away, but one of the tires blew, forcing the van to roll onto its side and skidded until it finally stopped. When the van finally stopped, I had to get my bearings again, and I could feel I had received a couple of bruises from the wreck, and hit my head to where I bled. I had been through my share of wounds in the post-Judgement Day war, but somehow I've been lucky on this one-way trip through time compared to the former.

"What's everyone's status?" The Terminator asked as it got its own bearings.

"I'm ok, but Mom's bleeding out of her leg," John gave his answer.

I answered, "I'm ok, just bruised." I started moving from my spot and winced slightly from the soreness of my bruises. I went to help John move Sarah out of the van. As we got out, someone had stopped to check on us. It was an older guy, appeared to be in his fifties, and he had a 4-door pickup truck.

He said, "I don't know how you all aren't hurt worse than what you should be, but I want to help you if I can." He then noticed the Terminator and could see metal exposed on its head, and it shocked him.

I talked to him, "Is there any chance we can use your truck? We're being chased by someone who's extremely dangerous."

The man said, "Oh, go ahead." He was actually willing to help us, which was a bit of a surprise. We were gonna take the truck anyway, but he didn't need to know that. Suddenly, in the distance, I saw a semi-truck that was hauling a tanker speeding quite fast towards us, and I had a feeling of Déjà vu flood over me. I knew we had to move or we were all good as dead.

"Shit, guys, we gotta go, now!" I said to them, and further explained quickly to the man, "Whatever you do, get clear of this road!" The man nodded and climbed over the wall to get on the pedestrian walkway. We got in the truck and got going as fast as we could.

John and Sarah sat in the back, and I rode shotgun. Sarah spoke up, "I'm bleeding bad." John did his best to help his mother, telling her to keep pressure on her wound. I handed John a first aid kit that was in the glove box, and a bandana that was also in there for her to use as a tourniquet. I looked in the back window and saw that semi getting closer.

"Dammit, I wish that thing would give up!" I said, and Sarah replied, "It won't stop until we're all dead. Kyle told me that when I met him." I could only say, "Right…" I looked to the Terminator and asked him, "Can't this thing go any faster?"

It replied, "This is the vehicle's top speed."

John added his own response, "Are you kidding me? I could get out and run faster than this!"

I instantly thought about how he couldn't even outrun the previous semi on that underpowered thing he called a motorbike, but I put the thought away just as fast, and focused on our situation. Sarah let out a pained scream as the tourniquet was tightened on her leg to stop the bleeding, and suddenly the semi-truck was right behind us, ramming into us. The T-1000 kept trying to crush us with the semi as we sped down the expressway, and it had hit and spun a civilian's car out of its way in the process. We weren't gaining any distance at all.

Suddenly, the Terminator said to me, "Eric, drive a minute." I moved and took the wheel.

"Where the hell are you going?" John had asked it as it climbed out, but I knew what it was doing. I glimpsed and saw the 101 fire a grenade at the semi, damaging the engine and making the liquid metal slow down. The 101 told me to take the off ramp, which I did, but the liquid metal quickly moved to the off ramp with us.

"Dammit!" I exclaimed while still maneuvering the best I could. "Hold on," I hollered as I barely missed a semi that was in our path. The liquid metal rammed us again, making the Terminator drop his last grenade round onto the truck bed. It reached for the rifle, and climbed on top of the pickup.

We crashed through a gate to some kind of industrial plant and kept going as I got glimpses of the 101 rushing from the top of the pickup to climb onto the semi, and emptying a whole magazine into the liquid metal. The semi slowed down, and the Terminator forced the semi to spin and roll onto its side. It skidded on and on, while we tried to get some distance.

"Don't stop," Sarah said to me, and I kept driving. She also said to go straight, but I had ran out of path to drive on, for we ended up inside a big building, and there was a forklift in our way. I shouted for Sarah and John to get down, as I slammed the brakes and got down myself, but luckily, I managed to stop at just an inch away from hitting the prongs of the forklift.

The plant's alarm started blaring as John, Sarah and I got our bearings and we looked at the aftermath of the chase. The semi was totaled, and the tanker it was carrying had been broken open in half, and its contents were pouring out like crazy. It couldn't have been explosive fuel, because it would have went up in flames already.

I saw the liquid metal climb out of the semi and jump to the ground. It seemed confused at first by the liquid contents of the tanker, but it started walking towards us, but it started slowing down, as if it was struggling to move. I then noticed its whole body looked blue-ish and crystalized, and I realized what was happening. The tanker was carrying liquid nitrogen, and the liquid metal was being frozen by it.

Then one of its legs broke off, and then the other. It fell and its hand was stuck to the ground. It tried to pull its hand from the ground, but it broke off also, and finally it was frozen in place. I got out and went to check on the Terminator, and saw it getting up and pulling its pistol out at the liquid metal. I heard it said, "Hasta La Vista, baby," and then firing a shot at the frozen T-1000, making it shatter into pieces.

 **A/N: Ok, three details I changed in this part from the movie: One, I changed the pickup truck to a crew cab, because the original truck from the movie would have been too cramped for four. Two: Asking someone climbing out of a wreck if they are hurt is kinda stupid. And three: That one part where John crashed the truck into the forklift was kinda stupid too. If you can see there's no more path for you to drive, it would be common sense to hit the brakes, if possible, before you crash into anything.**

 **Anyway, we're finally coming to a close with one more chapter ahead. I MIGHT include an epilogue, but hey, one step at a time, right? I just want to say, it's been quite an experience writing this, and once again, thanks so much for all the faves, follows, and reviews so far! I'm not sure where I'll go from here once I finish this story. Maybe take a step back and let some ideas stir in my mind, but I hope to keep writing for FanFiction. That's all for now.**


	15. Chapter XIII: Running Through Fire

**A/N: Here we are, the finale of Two Warriors, and of my first multi-chapter fanfic! I know it's been a good bit, and I apologize for the wait. Life has had me distracted from writing, so I made this chapter noticeably longer to make up for it. Writing this has been quite a ride for me personally, and I hope you enjoy the finale!**

 **Chapter Thirteen: Running Through Fire**

 _ ***Eric's POV***_

I had a strong gut feeling that it was not over yet as I walked closer to the Terminator. It was loading a new magazine into its pistol as John came over to where we were. I figured out quick from the sight of a vat of molten steel nearby, leaking onto the ground, that this place was a steel mill. Seeing the sparks of the mill fall onto the frozen chunks of the T-1000, and the overall heat of the place only justified my gut feeling.

"I knew it wouldn't be over just like that," I spoke up, and John asked me, "What do you mean?" I pointed to the chunks thawing out and turning to liquid again. "We don't have much time," the Terminator said to us as the puddles of the poly-alloy started forming together to form one large puddle. The Terminator finally said, "Let's go!" We hurried back to get Sarah as I saw glimpses of the puddle forming back into that terrifyingly familiar shape.

"Come on, Sarah, we gotta keep moving," I said to her as John and I helped her out of the truck, she was still weak from her leg wound, so we would have to help her run. We quickly grabbed our weapons. All we had left was a tactical shotgun and the grenade launcher, with only one grenade round left. The pistols the cyborg and I still had would be nothing but peashooters against the liquid metal.

The Terminator and I helped her move with us, and John stayed close. We moved as fast as we could, going deeper into the steel mill to evade the liquid metal. Sarah dropped for a moment at one point, and I said to her, "Come on, Sarah, on your feet!" She got up and kept moving, and the Terminator was taking point. The liquid metal was still on our tail, and I knew it would not stop until it completed its mission.

Sarah had us stop because we came upon a pool full of molten steel, and the intense heat was too much. We had to turn back and find another path, but we saw the T-1000 closing in on us. "Go, run," the Terminator said to us as it readied the grenade launcher. I knew instantly that the 101 was going to slow down the liquid metal so we could get away, but John objected, "No! We gotta stick together!"

It looked back at John, "John, you got to go now."

"Come on, John," I said to him, getting him to let go of the machine, even Sarah was motioning for him to let go. The 101 finally exclaimed, "Go! _Now!"_ Despite John's protests, he came with us and we kept moving through the mill as fast as we could.

 _ ***POV Shift to the Terminator***_

After the three went on ahead, the Terminator turned its head to face forward, with the grenade launcher in its left hand, and its pistol in its right. The T-1000 was no longer in sight, and the 101 scanned the area for a minute until the former surprised it with an attack from its left, knocking the launcher out of its hand. It attempted to use its pistol, but it was no use, as the T-1000 disarmed it of that too, and the two machines got into another match of slamming each other into walls and objects, only it was more brutal this time compared to the first time in the mall utility corridor.

Eventually, the T-1000 knocked the Terminator back into some industrial equipment, and the latter's arm got caught and trapped between some big metal cogwheels. Seeing that the Terminator was now a non-obstacle for the time being, the T-1000 left the Terminator stuck there and it went on to hunt down its main target, John Connor.

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric***_

Sarah, John and I kept on moving through the steel mill to get some distance from the liquid metal, and then Sarah started talking to me. "Eric… When you said, 'On your feet,' to me, it took me back to when I lost Kyle." She finally explained to me what happened to Kyle when the previous Terminator trapped them in that factory. Kyle was wounded when they were being chased, and when they were in the factory, Sarah had said to him, "On your feet, soldier," to keep him going. Ultimately, Kyle used all of the strength he had to put a pipe bomb into the previous 101's exposed body to destroy it, but he died from the blast. Sarah ended up having to finish it off by trapping it in a hydraulic press.

I processed this information the best I could, and this time, I did not feel any more grief, but I finally had a feeling of closure regarding the death of the man I considered my friend and brother I never had. John was listening to the story, and apparently, it was the first time he heard of it too. He spoke up, "Mom, I had no idea… I am so sorry I ever doubted you." He held on to her tight while we kept moving. She said to him, "It's okay, John. Everyone gets doubts at one point or another."

I wanted to assure them that it wasn't gonna end the same way as last time, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. We finally started climbing up some steps onto a platform, and when we got to the other end of the platform, we saw the liquid metal ahead, slowly approaching the stairs we were gonna take, and the Terminator was nowhere to be found. I could only hope it was not dead.

We had to act quickly, and we moved to some chains that lowered to some kind of conveyer belt. Sarah and I helped John grab them and we lowered him down onto the belt, and then I helped Sarah down. I watched the belt carry them away as John screamed for me to join them, and Sarah only looked at me. I simply said to them, "It's ok," before they disappeared from sight.

The liquid metal was on the platform now, and I readied the shotgun that I grabbed from Sarah before I helped her and John onto the conveyer belt. I fired a round at its head, making a massive hole, but it just regenerated. I attempted to fire another round, but only a click sounded out. Realizing that there was only one round in the shotgun, I pulled out my pistol and emptied the last magazine I had, but the liquid metal just shook the shots off as it finally stabbed and pinned me to a pillar behind me, and I let out a short but loud scream of pain.

It had stabbed me through my right shoulder with its finger that turned into a long, small rounded, sharp pointed shape, purposely missing any vitals, as if it wanted to cause me pain before it killed me, and it was working, because it was hurting like hell. It looked at me, and it spoke, "Call to John." It was seeing if I would comply, but I knew better. It was my duty to protect John at all cost, and I thought I was good as dead already even if I complied. I simply grunted, "No," to it.

"I know this hurts," it said as it twisted its currently formed stabbing weapon into me, making it hurt more as it told me again to call for John. I was fighting as hard as I could through the pain, looking at this thing studying me for a moment before moving its other hand up and its finger forming into another long, small rounded stabbing weapon, only this one was aiming for my face. Terminators knew what humans' kill points were, and this one, which happened to be a liquefied version, was ready to stab through my face and kill me. It told me one more time, "Call to John, _now._ "

I don't know why, but something drove me to get some last words out to this thing, even though it would never understand human emotions. "You know, Skynet stole so much life from the human race, myself included. It killed my parents, and I almost committed suicide because you fucking machines took away my reason for living."

It actually replied, "Interesting… Why _do_ you still live now?"

I looked right into its cold, emotionless eyes and said, "Because I found something else worth living for, and I have John Connor, Sarah Connor, and Kyle Reese to thank for that. Even though I lost Reese because of Skynet, I still kept fighting, and I'm still alive. So, you might as well kill me now, because I'll _never_ help you complete your mission!"

I could see it was getting momentum to finish me off, but suddenly the 101 appeared seemingly out of nowhere and attacked the liquid metal with a long bar, cutting through its shoulder down to the abdomen, making it let go of me, and I could only slump down and watch the 101 fight the liquid metal. I was physically weak from the wound the T-1000 gave me. I watched as the T-1000 grabbed and phased the bar out from its body and use it against the 101. I noticed that the 101 was missing an arm, but my mind quickly went back to my wound and trying to regain my bearings. They fought until they were out of view and earshot.

A few minutes went by, and it seemed to have gotten too quiet. I took the time to reload the shotgun. It was a bit struggle to use my right arm, but I managed grab it and load the remaining shells that were resting in the foldable stock into the receiver, and pumped a round into the chamber. I even grabbed my pistol from where I dropped it, and checked it. Turned out I didn't empty the magazine before the liquid metal stabbed me, and I had one bullet left in the chamber.

Even though my wound hurt quite a bit, I was not bleeding badly. I recovered my strength the best I could before I moved away from my spot while realizing something: The 101 had saved my life, and I never thought that I would owe one to a cyborg. I found a place a hide and wait in case the liquid metal came back for me.

 _ ***POV Shift to John and Sarah***_

John and Sarah kept moving until they came to a good hiding spot and used it to get a moment of respite. John seemed to be fighting back some tears and anger. He spoke up, "Why? Why would he stay behind like that? He doesn't stand a chance on his own!" Sarah responded, "Don't count him out just yet. He may have been through a lot, but he is still a strong fighter. All we can do now is to keep pushing through until it's over."

John looked at his mother and nodded in understanding. Sarah herself was fighting back the thought that their situation would be a repeat of 1984 as she spoke again, "Eric is much like your dad in some ways." John asked, "What do you mean?"

"He's caring, determined, and would do anything to keep us safe… John, can you keep a secret?"

John nodded yes.

"While we were at Enrique's, Eric confided in me about how you two will meet."

"He told me that he had lost his parents and that he had lost the will to live when I meet him, but left it at that."

"I see. Well, what he told me is that you find him with a gun to his head about to commit suicide, and you talk him out of it and into joining you. You save his life, and now he sees you, even me as his family now, and he intends to keep fighting alongside you."

John had a deeper respect for Eric Clark now, and could only hope that he would survive this.

Then suddenly they both hear a faint voice calling out to them. After listening closely, they figured out that it was Eric calling out to both of them.

"John… Sarah… I'm injured! Help!"

Sarah could tell that John was wanting to go to Eric, but warned him, "John, it might be a trap."

"What if it isn't?"

Sarah didn't like this. It didn't seem to be like Eric to call out for John to help unless it was safe, but she took a deep breath and said, "Ok, but when we find him, we'll have to keep our distance just in case."

John nodded and they made their way back where they came, following Eric's voice until it got louder.

"John… Sarah…" He seemed to keep repeating their names. Sarah definitely didn't like how this was happening, but they managed to find him on a platform that had a pool of molten steel below. Eric appeared to be wounded and struggling with standing on his feet.

"Eric," John said, as he and Sarah kept their distance. Eric kept saying, "Help… Help…" Even John started feeling uneasy about this as suddenly another figure appeared from behind Eric, and they saw the figure was a spitting, mirror-like image of Eric. He aimed a shotgun at the figure struggling to stand.

John and Sarah were shocked by what they were seeing until the Eric in the back spoke up, "Get out of the way, guys!"

John and Sarah then looked down at the Eric closest to them and saw that his feet looked melded to the grate of the platform, and they realized what was happening and they quickly moved out of the way.

 _ ***POV Shift to Eric***_

I fired the shotgun at the liquid metal and blew open a hole into it. It had tried to mimic me to get to John, and Sarah if it could kill two birds with one stone. I spoke up, "That's the last time you mimic anybody, you liquefied tin can bastard!"

The T-1000 turned around to face me and it phased back to its cop form. I finally had enough of this thing and fired another round into it and cycled a new round, despite feeling weak in my right arm. I found myself speaking to the liquid metal again as I kept shooting it, trying to knock it back so it could fall into the steel. "Here's some differences between humans and Skynet…"

*BOOM*

"We bury our dead!"

*BOOM*

"We mourn our dead!"

*BOOM*

"We honor our dead!"

*BOOM*

"We're not some expendable species!"

*BOOM*

"Even if the planet gets nuked, humans will still be here!"

*BOOM*

"Skynet will never even bury _you!_ "

*click*

A part of me was screaming, _"No, this can't be happening,"_ as the holes in the liquid metal closed up. I pumped the shotgun again and tried to fire it, but it was just a click. I had run out of ammo, and I was so close to knocking it over the railing and into the steel. It looked at me and wagged a finger as if scolding a child. I was exhausted from the whole ordeal as I dropped the shotgun in defeat while John and Sarah rushed to my side.

It started walking toward us to finally finish all three of us, but I noticed it looked at something behind us and we looked back to see what caught its attention. It was the 101, coming up to the platform on a conveyer belt, aiming the grenade launcher at the liquid metal. It was cue enough for us to duck for cover and it fired the grenade into the T-1000, and it exploded a second later.

I took a good look and saw that it severely damaged the liquid metal. The grenade had distorted its body completely, its arms dangled and its head was dangling upside down, like a horribly deformed lab experiment. From the way it started making metallic squeaks, groans and screams, it sounded like it had reached its limit. I felt my pistol on my side, and remembered that I had one round left in it. I grabbed it and aimed for the head.

I said some final words to it, "Looks like you've failed your mission, fucker." *BANG*

The pistol's slide kicked back and locked, and the bullet blew open a hole right between the liquid metal's eyes. The knockback was just enough to make it fall over the railing and into the molten steel below, and I heard it squeal before the splash. The three of us slowly got up and slowly walked over to see the T-1000, struggling to swim through the steel, and it I noticed it was changing into the forms of its victims, as if its time here was flashing before its eyes: Janelle, some security guard which I could only assume was a Pescadero guard, its alternate cop form, and then me. The whole time, it was roaring in distress, and it finally started losing its form and began melting into the steel, the last thing I see of it was its face before it faded away.

The liquid metal was finally no more, and John, Sarah and I were still alive. I looked back and saw that the Terminator was still ticking, but was struggling to get up. John and I went over to help it up.

"Come on, we got you," I said to it as we helped it up, I finally took a good look at its condition. Half of its face was gone, exposing its endoskeleton skull, it's lower abdomen was exposed, and I got a visual confirmation of its missing arm. It was completely torn off from what would be the elbow, and its left leg was exposed also. The liquid metal gave the 101 a run for its money.

The only thing I could actually say was, "Damn, that thing put you through the ringer."

It only replied, "I need a vacation." I would have chuckled if I hadn't felt the same way. We made our way back to the railing to look over into the molten steel. John asked if it was dead, and the 101 replied that it was terminated. John had the backpack containing the endo arm and asked if it would melt in the steel, and it replied with yes and said to throw it in. John took the arm out of the backpack and threw it in, saying, "Adios," as he did.

"And the chip," it added. John pulled the broken CPU out and dropped it in, and it instantly burned up. Sarah spoke up, "It's over…" I was hoping that was the case myself, but the Terminator replied, "No… There is one more chip." John, Sarah and I looked at the cyborg with wide eyes as it tapped its exposed skull with its finger and added, "And it must be destroyed also."

It then turned around, grabbing a control box for something and handed it to Sarah. "Here, I cannot self-terminate. You must lower me into the steel." We were in complete shock by what this cyborg was saying, and I'm sure John must have felt the worst, considering that he bonded with the machine. It was actually wanting us to destroy it so nothing was left to chance regarding the future.

"No…" John softly said to the Terminator.

Even I found myself having some objection to what was happening, "Does it have to be this way? Even after everything we've been through? I still owe you for stopping that thing from killing me."

"I'm sorry, Eric." Wait… Did it actually say it was sorry? It then walked to John, and he was objecting to this.

"I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry." It actually said it again… it was actually apologizing for having to leave us.

"No, it'll be okay, stay with us! It'll be okay!"

"I have to go away…"

"No, don't do it! Please, don't go!"

"I must go away, John." It gently pushed John away and grabbed a chain that had a hook on it and pulled it towards itself. My heart ached to see the kid who would be, or would have been my commanding officer in the future begging for the cyborg to stay with us.

"No, wait, you don't have to do this!"

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't do it, don't go!"

"It has to end here."

John grabbed hold of its jacket and tearfully ordered it not to go. It looked at John and replied, "I know now why you cry, but it's something I could never do." It wiped one of John's tears away with its finger, and then John hugged it tight, and it hugged back. It was a moment I thought I'd never see happen: a human and a cyborg saying an emotional goodbye to each other.

It turned to face Sarah, and then she had her hand out. It reached out and shook her hand. She had finally found an ally with a machine, but now had to bid it farewell. Finally, it turned to me, and I shook hands with it also. "It's been an honor," I said to it in a soft tone, looking it in the eyes. It replied, "Look after them. That's how you can pay me back." I nodded softly in understanding, and then it stepped on the chain hook.

"Goodbye." That was the final word it said before it pushed itself away from the platform, and then Sarah pressed the button on the control box to make it slowly descend into the molten steel. I was standing next to John, and I could see how heartbroken he was. It was like losing a friend to him, and I could strongly relate. The Terminator was halfway down when I decided to raise my hand up in salute, despite my arm feeling weak from the shoulder wound. I had found a comrade in the cyborg myself, and my own heart ached as the cyborg touched the steel, and it slowly sunk down. Its body disappeared until all that was left was his good hand, and I could see it making a thumbs up gesture before it disappeared into the steel. I smiled a little by the sight of it as I imagined its visual interface going crazy with errors before finally shutting down for good.

I put my hand down after seeing it was gone for good, and looked over to Sarah as she dropped the box onto the grate of the platform. John went in to hug her tight. He was mourning the Terminator, and Sarah held him as close to her as she could. I made my way to them, and I put my hand on John's shoulder, and Sarah gave me a sad smile, which I could only interpret it as that she was glad that I didn't suffer the same fate as Kyle did. I wasn't sure how much time went by before we started making our way out of the steel mill before any cops showed up.

So much had happened for all of us. I had met John twice in my own life span, the first time when he was the leader of the human resistance, and the second time when he was just a kid. Time travel is truly a strange thing. I lost my birth family, and had gained another family in the Connors. Sarah lost the man she loved, gained a son, but despite her best efforts to train him, she was locked away because people thought she was crazy, and I could only imagine what those people put her through before we got her out. John had started to doubt everything Sarah told him until he met me and the Terminator. And now that it was over, I was free, and so was John and Sarah. I only hoped that Kyle would be able to rest in peace himself now, or perhaps he would be born again into a much better life compared to living in a world devastated by nuclear war and Skynet's machines. The only thing I had left to do, was to tell John everything I could about my friendship with his dad. Miles Dyson thought he was helping to create some great technological benefit for the human race, but the only problem with using machines to make the hard decisions is that they are typically cold and calculating. Even if they understood and valued human life, they could never experience the human emotions that came with those decisions, and we helped Miles realize that before it was too late. I hope he lives a better life with his family.

The only question that will haunt me is whether the fourth figure in the TDE chamber before I jumped was an older version of myself. Perhaps it's best that I never learn the answer. Now that the threats of the liquid metal, Skynet, and the war were over, for the first time in my life I had started facing the unknown future, as well as my own, with a sense of hope. Even the Terminator said that I would find a way regarding my own future, and I believe its words, as well as future John's. If a machine, a Terminator, can learn and value human life, maybe we humans can do the same.

 **A/N: FINALLY, I'm happy to be finished with this story! Again, I'm sorry I kept you all waiting. I don't know where I'll go from here. I'll probably think about writing some extra stuff for this story, maybe write an epilogue, a one-shot tie-in (maybe make it a two-shot), perhaps a what-if scene, BUT for the most part, this story is COMPLETE, and I hope to move on to writing a fanfic for one of my favorite games next time! Thank you all so much for reading! Favorites, follows and reviews will still be appreciated! Take care, everyone!**


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